The Harold is a longform improvised form developed by Del Close. It is a collage of scenes inspired by a single suggestion which are interwoven and connected.

The Harold consists of 3 components:

Scenes, with 2 to 4 players

Group games or scenes

The format starts with a suggestion from the audience - this could really be anything. Players will start associating around the suggestion, and then an opening is played. In this opening, a lot of associated elements round the audience suggestion are presented. The opening might be a song, a monologue, might be organic involving morphing sound and movement exploration, a pattern game where word association is used to generate ideas or simply a group association based on the audience suggestion. The idea is to use the elements, themes and ideas that come up in the opening game/group scene.

Then follow 3 rounds of scenes, all based on the themes and ideas found in the opening. Each round consists of 3 scenes, all unrelated, but each based on the themes and associations form the opening game/scene. Since these themes and ideas originated from the same audience suggestion, the audience will hopefully feel some links between the scenes.

After the first round of 3 scenes, a group game/scene is played. It is unrelated to the 3 scenes played before. Then, in the second round, each of the 3 previous scenes is continued, and more or less obvious links between the scenes start to emerge. This is again followed by a group game/scene, and then the 3 scenes are played into a conclusion.

It`s quite possible that in the third round not every scene is continued; scenes may disappear or even merge with one another.

Minimum 6 months improv experience is required to participate.

If you have any questions please contact me at: luis_nog@hotmail.com

Luis Rafael Nogueira has been performing, teaching and directing improv for 10 years and online improv for almost 2 years, since the beginning of the pandemic.

He has trained in London with improv companies and schools such as Hoopla, Imprology, The Comedy school among others.

He has been training intensively with UK, US-based companies and schools as well as Europeans since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. Such companies include: The Maydays, The Nursery and Hoopla (all from London) Amanda Rountree (ex-Second City), Feña Ortalli (Argentina), The Free Association (FA, London), Bird City improv (US, Baltimore), The Hideout Theatre (US, Texas), Terry Withers (ex-UCB NY) and Liverpool Improv Comedy.

Luis is also a member of one of the online improv The Nursery/The Maydays (London) house teams and performs Organic Harolds and Deconstructions (comedic long-form) regularly with his group "The Sheep of Orion".