вЂњWe spend most of the time playing improv games, to get people thinking, but we also make sure itвЂ™s accessible to everyone.вЂќ Going remoteДЇace to face, itвЂ™s challenging to make an activityвЂ™s appeal universal for a large group, but adding the remote layer required even more creativity. вЂњThe objective is to promote social engagement, to use your brain in a creative way,вЂќ says Megan Kalafsky, program coordinator of Time Out, a joint initiative from Penn and Temple University that runs Cognitive Comedy.

A fall session will start mid-September, still virtual. Since then, two eight-week remote sessions have run, the second of which finished at the end of July. Then in March, the pandemic made it increasingly clear that was no longer safe or feasible, so the Penn Memory Center moved the Cognitive Comedy program online. ItвЂ™s crucial that the participants of this improv workshop, who have named themselves the Funny Philadelphians, feel comfortable because they either have memory impairments themselves or care for someone who does. But as Haskell-who introduces herself as Jazzy Jean, replete with jazz hands-hoped it would, the exercise breaks the ice perfectly. After each one, the participants mimic the speaker, laughing at the silliness of it all. Hellacious Helen makes horns on her head with two fingers and Suspicious Susan pretends to hold a telescope up to her eyes. An adjective? Crude,вЂќ says one person, before holding up his thumb in hitchhiker fashion. She asks participants to say their name along with an adjective and gesture for everyone else to copy. WeвЂ™ll be getting ready for a performance next week, and weвЂ™ll be telling some jokes.вЂќ вЂњAlright, everybody, weвЂ™re going to start. Mid-morning on a Wednesday in early May, Jean Haskell tries to quiet a dozen chatty adults on a Zoom call. Though some facets changed as the sessions went virtual, the program remains well-loved and well-attended. Much like in traditional improv, participants in the Penn Memory CenterвЂ™s Cognitive ComedyВ play off of each other, running scenes or throwing each other imaginary balls of varying sizes, for example.

Mind meld improv game