Genres classify works by shared content or formal traits. In improv theatre, the genres usually played come from film, TV, theatre, music or literature. While academic usage distinguishes between genres, sub-genres and styles, that distinction is uncommon in improv.
There is no generally accepted, binding system of genres. Genres are constantly being reinvented or redefined. For improv, the genres that work best are those familiar to the whole audience. Audiences delight in recognising familiar clichés. Good improv players know each genre's clichés and serve them clearly on stage. For genre-based formats, exaggerating a genre's typical features a little is often helpful.
Features
Genres are characterised by their shared traits, for example:
- Scenes shown extensively: an action film shows individual fight scenes, a war film military battles, a horror film gruesome dismemberments, porn sexual acts, romance romantic encounters, a wildlife film animals, an infomercial channel goods to buy, a medical drama doctor-patient consultations, a court show trials, a kung-fu film martial arts, a space epic spaceships, a fantasy film fantasy worlds …
- Goal of the action: in a crime film a crime is committed and/or solved; in romances and Bollywood films a couple finds each other; in Heimatfilm and medical drama a wholesome world is (re)established.
- Geographic location: a Western plays out in the American Midwest, an Eastern in East Asia, a Bollywood film in India.
- Time period: a typical Western is set around 1880, a silent film around 1920, a film noir around 1940, a science-fiction story in the future, news today. Other genres veil the time to make the story feel timeless.
- Profession of the lead characters: medical dramas almost always feature doctors and/or nurses; crime films, police officers and/or detectives; court shows, judges; war films, officers; Westerns, a sheriff; documentary and news, reporters …
- Characters: the classic film detective (Philip Marlowe) is a taciturn loner; the good Western hero is usually a touch too nice, the bad one especially greedy and mean; in a horror film the dread happens to the naive girl next door; romance films always include someone who tries to keep the future couple apart.
- Central conflict: many genres revolve around an elementary conflict that is sharpened over the course of the story and resolved at the dramatic peak. Crime films ask "Will the perpetrator be brought to justice?", love stories "Will the lovers find each other?", war films "Which side wins?", medical dramas "Will the patient survive?", Westerns "Whose town is it?". For documentary, porn, news and the like, conflict is incidental.
- Worldview and mood: in romance there can never be enough love, all is well if people only love properly; crime films assume that law and order exist, even when actors brashly or cynically defy them; action films champion the right of the strongest, enforced through force, cunning and trickery, celebrating the (male) warrior; medical and court drama trusts the moral wisdom of the doctor or judge; horror films sense danger behind the everyday surface — the paranoiac's fear, justified by the actual stalker; …
- Narrative technique: in musical, opera and Bollywood the storytelling is linear and feelings are sung in many musical numbers; in the Western the action heads for the great showdown ("High Noon"); in crime films flashbacks and flash-forwards are common; …
To establish a genre on stage, the easiest move is to lean into familiar film and TV clichés:
- Non-geographic locations: typical Western scenes happen in saloons or on the wide prairie, science fiction inside spaceships, horror in dark dungeons, classical detective stories in the detective's office, action on the street, war in trenches, porn in beds, Bollywood in vast palaces, modern crime in mortuaries, Bavarian Heimatfilm on alpine pastures …
- Props: attacking another person with a chainsaw suggests horror; a humming lightsaber points to space epic; a swinging double door at waist height belongs in a Western saloon; eye patches show up in pirate films; … Props can also exclude genres. Modern technology like phones or computers fixes the action in the present and rules out historicising genres like the Western.
- Creatures, animals: zombies belong in horror; vultures circle thirsting Western heroes; cows graze contentedly on the alpine meadow; horses can be tied up by the Western hero outside the saloon, or fed and stroked by the lovesick romance heroine; …
- Scenes: a gun duel suggests Western; a wedding suggests romance; an over-the-top presentation of household items reads quickly as an infomercial; …
Frequently played
Film
- Romance film, romantic comedy, romance
- Action film
- Bollywood
- Heimatfilm
- Horror film, splatter, ghost story
- Crime film, detective film, film noir
- Fairy tale
- Science fiction
- Spy film
- Silent film
- Western
Music
- Musical
- Opera
- Gospel
- Schlager
- Hip Hop, rap, break dance
TV
- Infomercial / teleshopping
- Talk show
- News, weather forecast
See also: Overview of genres
Examples of genre games
- Genre replay
- Radio mix
- Genre freeze
- Continue in my genre
- Genre roller coaster
- Genre triangle
- Potpourri
External links
More information online:
- Film genre on Wikipedia
- Theatre genre on Wikipedia