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Preparing for a Thanksgiving Dinner (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly): You must decide who is giving the best advice for preparing for a Thanksgiving Dinner. 3 players (experts) form a line upstage. The audience provides questions or problems for which they need advice. Actor #1 always provide good advice, actors #2 always gives bad advice , and actors #3 gives really bad advice. Good advice should be good, bad should be opposite of the good and ugly should be an even worse version of bad.
Action Figures: 1-2 actors are getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. They must prepare an imaginary dinner but none of them can move on their own. They can only speak. 1-2 audience members must move them in all the actions they say they want to do.
Guess Who is Coming to Thanksgiving Dinner? (Party Quirks and Dating Game): In all three of these games, three actors become famous people or characters suggested by the audience. Then you have one person who tries to guess who they are. You can have the audience write suggestions on pieces of paper before the show or you can the person guessing step outside and the audience can make suggestions.
- Party Quirks: The person guessing is the host of a Thanksgiving party and the other actors ring the doorbell and enter one at a time as their characters creating problems at the party. The person guess must say who they are to get rid of them.
- Dating Game: The person guessing is a bachelor or bachelorette who needs a date for Thanksgiving dinner with the family. He/she interviews the three famous people (real or fictional) with dating type questions (i.e. what's your ideal date? what would be a perfect place to go for a romantic vacation?). The date must give answers that reveal who they are without saying their names.
Documentary or Slide Show: A leader pretends to be a narrator of a documentary and the actors must act out the documentary the leader describes (do theme such as the history of Thanksgiving or the history of your family). They can do it as a slideshow/powerpoint with still picture poses or actually act out what is being narrated.
Gibberish: A group of actors (group #1) are foreign guests at a Thanksgiving dinner and act out a scene speaking in a weird language. They are thankful for the nice dinner and try to tell their hosts all the things they are thankful for. The other group of actors (group #2) act out the same scene and translate what was said in English.
- Variation 1: have actors translate what was said by the foreign guests as they act
- Variation 2: have a actor play a long lost foreigner relative who speaks gibberish and have the other actors try to figure out what he/she is saying in a scene where he/she shows up at their door unexpectedly
Stunt Doubles: 2 Actors are acting a scene such as dealing with a turkey who doesn't want to be cooked for dinner. When it comes time to do a "dangerous" step (such as grabbing the turkey or plucking him) they call in their stunt doubles. The easier the "dangerous" task is, the funnier it can be (such as picking up litter).
Questions Only: Actors get in two lines (one line is parents and the other is kids). They talk in the form of a question. If they make a statement or don't use a question, then they must go to the back of the line or the audience can shout DIE and they must do a dramatic death scene. The line with the most left at the end wins. The topic is... you guessed it... Thanksgiving (maybe more specifically - what are you thankful for).
Stand Sit Slump: A pilgrim meets two Native Americans for the first time (or two pilgrams meet one Native American). One must be standing, one must be sitting and one must slump down on the ground. After each actor says one thing, the last actor to speak must pick a new position (stand) and the others must adjust and pick the two remaining positions (sit and slump). This can continue until a high moment of humor or until one actor majorly messes up.
Share your ideas for games in the discussion below!
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