Improv with Robots: Creativity, Inspiration, Co-Performance

Improvisational actors are adept at creative exploration within a set of boundaries. These boundaries come from each scene having “games” that establish the rules of-play. In this paper, we introduce a game that allows an expressive motion robot to collaboratively develop a narrative with an improviser. When testing this game on eight improv performers, our team explored two research questions: (1) Can a simple robot be a creative partner to a human improviser, and (2) Can improvisers expand our understanding of robot expressive motion? After conducting 16 scenes and 40 motion demonstrations, we found that performers viewed our robot as a supportive teammate who positively inspired the scene’s direction. The improvisers also provided insightful perspectives on robot motion, which led us to create a movement categorization scheme based on their various interpretations. We discuss our lessons learned, show the benefits of merging social robotics with improvisational theater, and hope this will encourage further exploration of this cross-disciplinary intersection.