Short-form games
Two-Headed Expert
Two players share a single character, speaking one word each, while a third interviews them about their field of expertise.
Also known as: Double Figure, Expert Interview, One Word at a Time Expert
How to run it
- Take a field of expertise from the audience.
- Two players stand shoulder to shoulder as a single expert.
- An interviewer asks questions.
- The expert answers one word at a time, alternating strictly between the two players.
- Neither may steer — each must accept the grammar and direction the other set.
What it teaches
Surrendering control of a sentence, and matching a partner's rhythm and syntax precisely.
Coaching notes
The tell of a good pair is that sentences end cleanly. If both players are pushing toward their own punchline, sentences run on forever and die.
Where it usually goes wrong. One player supplies all the nouns and the other only conjunctions.
Related reading: listening and the second line, yes, and.
See it played
We do not link individual videos we have not watched end to end, so this is a search rather than a recommendation: Two-Headed Expert on YouTube. Quality varies enormously — prefer recordings from working theatres over tutorial channels.