Unfortunately / Fortunately

Summary

Create an elaborate story, in pairs or as a group, with many twists and turns.

How Do I Play It?

Start in a Drama circle.

Explain that you are going to create a story as a group by going around the circle and adding a line each. The only rule is that the lines must alternate between: "Unfortunately...." and "Fortunately....".

For example:

  1. "Unfortunately my flight hit some turbulance."
  2. "Fortunately it didn't last too long."
  3. "Unfortunately the turbulance caused an engine to fail."
  4. "Fortunately there were parachutes on board."
  5. "Unfortunately there weren't enough to go round."
  6. ...etc.
Tips

Encourage participants to play with the theme as it develops and to avoid too many tangents. The continuity allows the remaining participants to carefully consider their addition into the story.

Participants
Pairs, Small Groups, Whole Group
Expertise
Novice
Duration
Medium (5 - 10 mins)
Skills
Imagination, Improvisation, Spontaneity
Read more...
Games could be a beginning starter, an introducing step during a workshop or as an end plenary. They are a platform for further development and are never meant to be the whole session on their own.

The nature of drama games is that they are shared, adapted and extended. The original author is not so important as the shared practice. You’ll find games on the site that you’ve seen before, called something different or that you even use in your own teaching toolkit.

We hope that among the known games are ideas of how to refresh old ones as well as new games to use.