Status Group

Three exercises in which status can be practised in a group:

Foursome

At the start, four players draw four slips of paper face down, on which their status is noted.
- 1 = high status
- 4 = low status
- 2 and 3 lie correspondingly in between.

The facilitator now sets a typical situation in which several people can act, e.g. an open-plan office, a hotel (lobby). Without knowing the others' status, a scene is now improvised in which everyone must assert their own status, while at the same time also paying attention to what status their fellow players have, because at the beginning everyone only knows their own status.

It is important that status 1 and status 4 should not talk to each other.
In between, the facilitator asks the remaining players, who form the audience, who has which status. If this is wrong or unclear, the players on stage have to portray it more clearly.

Party

At the start, 4 to 10 players each draw a slip of paper face down, on which their status is noted. So they don't know the status of the others. 1 is the highest status and 10 (or a lower number, corresponding to the number of participants) is the lowest. The numbers in between correspond to the respective "intermediate status". A scene at a party is now freely improvised. Everyone tries to interact with each other. After the end of the scene, the players line up according to their estimate of status. The highest and lowest have it easy, since they already know their respective position in the line. Any spectators can give their comments, e.g. because they perceived the statuses differently. Finally, the players reveal their status.

Flatshare

Three players sit next to each other on stage and form a flatshare. A fourth player would like to be accepted into this flatshare and comes to visit in order to introduce themself.

As soon as everyone has taken their place, the facilitator hands out small slips of paper with the numbers 1-4, which symbolise status as above. A freely improvised scene follows in which everyone must assert their status, while at the same time also paying attention to what status their fellow players have, because at the beginning everyone only knows their own status.

In between, the facilitator asks the remaining players, who form the audience, who has which status. If this is wrong or unclear, the players on stage have to portray it more clearly.

Variants for Foursome and Flatshare

• During the running scene the facilitator interrupts, the status slips are drawn anew and the corresponding status is observed in the further play: the interrupted scene is continued with the "newly drawn" status.
• The facilitator interrupts and announces a status swap of two players, e.g. "the 2 becomes the 4 and the 4 becomes the 2".

Tips and notes

• The facilitator does not know the players' status either.
• Besides the status, since there are more than 2 players on stage, it is also important to constantly pay attention to the focus!
• Finding the status goes faster if one of the extreme figures (highest/lowest status) starts the scene and makes their status clear at that point. Then it is easy(er) for the others to define their status. As a further strategy, it could develop, for example, that the respective other extreme figure then acts as the 2nd person in the scene. When the players have caught on to such "tricks", the facilitator can prevent this by designating a specific person who is to begin the scene.

See also: Statusraten