The newest show at the Roving Imp is coming up this weekend, and I’m getting really excited. This show has been a long time coming… since very early in the life of the Imp, we’ve had the “Game Show,” which presents various game shows live on stage. These Game Shows are really fun, and are a really neat idea. However, they don’t draw well. Audiences have not been good for the Game Shows, no matter which one has been presented. And with the amount of work that goes into each one, preparing questions, learning rules, getting prizes, and getting a basic stage look for the show… well, they’re not working out. I’ve not given up on them completely, but I’m no longer planning on doing them on a regular basis. They’ll pop up again from time to time if I need to fill a hole in the schedule, but (sigh) for now, I consider this format to be one that is not yet ready to be accepted.

I’m a huge game fan, though. I grew up watching game shows, and still am a daily watcher of Jeopardy! I have a collection of 130 board games that has taken over an entire wall of my house. This may be where my love of playing improv games originally came from.

Several months ago, when I realized that the Game Show was not going to work out, I started looking for a way to combine improv with a game show… but after a few attempts, I couldn’t quite bring myself to tamper with what were, in effect, my childhood friends. Board games, however, I’d been tampering with for years. Many times the rules that come with these games are overly complex, incomplete, or just plain stupid. I’ve been altering board game rules for as long as I can remember.

Trivial Pursuit has long been one of my favorites. As a child, I used to play it with my grandma. When she died, I received her Trivial Pursuit game, and still have it as one of my treasured possessions. People tell me I’m wickedly good at it… and I do win more often than not, but I really just enjoy playing. Winning isn’t the ultimate goal… which to me, is why a game is fun. It’s the journey, not the destination.

A couple months ago, I tried out a preliminary version of the Trivial Pursuit Game Show on stage. It drew just as many people as Game Shows usually did, which is probably a good thing, as it wasn’t fully cooked yet. It was fun, but not fun enough. It was time to really crank things up.

I thought I’d try a more “Bassprov” type Trivial Pursuit - two or three people sitting around playing the game, talking about some of the topics raised by the answers to the questions. This idea came to me while playing a game of TP with my sister Julie. I took it to the stage, and James Nelson and Magie Hogan of the Imps helped me workshop it. After that first session, it was still clear to me that this format was still not going to be the final form.

James and Magie returned to help me work on it again, and this time, I was more prepared. We keep the questions, and get rid of the game board. Standing on opposite sides of the stage, the two players (or teams) fire questions at one another, and anytime someone gets a question wrong, an improvised scene happens, with the actual answer used as the suggestion. This time, things clicked.

After working on it a little more, we arrived at a multi-round system. Round One will be quickfire scenes. Round Two will be longer scenes, and will make up the bulk of the show. Round Three will use a longer form we use at RI and Rounds Four and Five will be a short form game or two. In effect, we’re blending games with a bunch of different types of improv, all under the umbrella of a competition.

This is without a doubt the most fun form I’ve had the opportunity to help create. I can’t wait to get it in front of an audience this weekend. James is returning to christen the form, and based on the rehearsals so far, he has absolutely no chance of winning the trivia portion. However, he will really be a force when it comes to the improv, which is, of course, the most important thing.

Now, I’m just hoping that Trivial Prov-suit will entice an audience better than its ancestor, the Game Show.