🚨Code Blue: Improv Taboo

Setup and Launch

Code Blue: Improv Taboo is a late-night show for advanced players. Every player is an agent. Before the show, pick a provocative codename for yourself.

Before the show the audience writes taboo topics on sheets of paper. Put each topic into its own folder — that is a mission file. Agree on coordinated outfits: the agents look like one team.

Assemble a cast that is diverse in gender, race and orientation. A team of only similar people brings a narrow worldview and unconscious biases to the stage, while a diverse cast gives sharper and more nuanced comedy.

Give the briefing room — the shared scene between missions — a justification. For example: the team tests the limits of comedy to save humanity.

Flow

The show runs an hour and is built like Spokane or Town Council: a central scene the agents leave for their missions and return to.

1. The briefing room

The show starts in the briefing room. It is the central scene the agents return to after every mission. How to play it — see the coach notes.

2. Choosing a mission

One agent takes a folder and reads the topic — aloud or silently. The team decides how to carry out the mission. There are six options.

1. Going undercover. If the agent read the topic silently, they call the mission top-secret and start a scene or a character monologue themselves. The very first line speaks directly about the topic. If the topic was read aloud and the team goes undercover, any agent can start with a character who touches the topic directly.
2. Interrogation room. The team decides that another agent knows something important about the topic and points at them. Two agents talk about the topic, short and honest. Then comes a montage — a run of short scenes back to back — built on one or two ideas from that conversation. The scenes open the idea directly or through analogy.
3. Suicide mission. Two players perform a scene that is not funny and speaks directly about the problem. If a game can be pulled out of the scene — a repeating pattern that gets the laughs — the agents replay the scene with an absurd twist. If not, they move on to the next mission. Which topics replay well and which do not — see below.
4. Call for back-up. An agent points at another agent, and that agent takes one more folder. The two players start a scene that touches two taboo topics at once.
5. Classified information. An agent decides they have classified information on the topic and tells a true monologue from their own life. Then comes a montage of scenes built on ideas from that story.
6. Going to the archives. The fallback option when the agents know nothing about the topic — for example, "the Bowling Green massacre". One agent leaves the stage and looks the topic up online while the others carry out another mission. When that mission is over, the agent comes back and shares what they learned. It becomes the idea for the archive mission. On returning, the agent can start a conversation in the manner of the Living Room format: the team sits on chairs and discusses the topic.

Topics for a suicide mission. These replay well with an absurd twist:

• human folly — minor accidents, swear words, minor offenses, secrets;
• human vice — alcoholism, cheating, addictions, minor crimes;
• universal struggles — money problems, minor identity issues, politics, common ailments;
• abstract concepts — homophobia, sexism, racism, patriarchy, equal pay.

These replay badly, better move on to the next mission:

• dehumanizing acts — slavery, internment camps, harassment, the N word, child labor;
• extreme violence — sexual assault, genocide, acts of torture, school shootings;
• specific hard struggles — police brutality, refugees, deportation, disabilities.

3. The mission

The agents play a scene or a run of scenes according to the chosen option.

4. Ending a mission

When the scene or the run of scenes is over, the agents yell: mission accomplished. One agent takes the next folder.

If a scene becomes offensive and punches down, any agent yells: mission aborted. After the abort all the agents run around the theatre and apologize to the audience cacophonously, until someone takes a new folder.

5. Finale

In the last 10-15 minutes of the show the agents do callbacks as they see fit — they bring back details and characters from the earlier missions.