Shavuot Improv Night 

A program developed by Aiden Pink, Jewish Life Specialist 

June 2025 

OVERVIEW: 

It is a tradition on Shavuot, the holiday celebrating receiving the Torah on Mount Sinai, to stay up all night studying Torah and learning about Judaism. This program two social improv games where players can “teach” each other about Judaism without having to have prepared anything in advance. 

In PowerPoint Karaoke, people have to give presentations on a Jewish subject – the catch is that they don’t know ahead of time what they are going to be presenting about.  

In The Unbelievable Truth, each presenter has to give a short presentation on a Jewish subject, in which every single sentence they say is false – except for five truths that they try to sneak in. See here for the rules and sample presentations. 

MATERIALS:  

• For PowerPoint Karaoke: PowerPoint prepared in advance, projector or large screen 

• The Unbelievable Truth: Something to write with for each player (can be paper/pencil or on Notes app)  

PowerPoint Karaoke program outline: 

• Before the program: Prepare a PowerPoint with random prompts and pictures: one random prompt and 10 random pictures per presenter – see the sample PowerPoint for an example. You can find random pictures using websites like this one or any other method. (You can also buy premade PowerPoint Karaoke slides on this website). 

• The presenter, who has not seen the PowerPoint in advance, must deliver a lecture on the topic seen on the first slide, and using the 10 picture slides in order as material to support their presentation. The person running the PowerPoint should give them a warning when they are on their final slide. 

• After each person has had a turn on a different PowerPoint, the audience votes on the winner! 

The Unbelievable Truth program outline: 

• After explaining the rules, everyone is given 15 minutes to write an oral presentation on a Jewish topic of their choice. Every sentence must be false, except for five true sentences embedded somewhere within the presentation. 

• It is helpful to choose a Jewish topic that you know some things about, but you’re also allowed to look things up.  

• The strategy is to try to include obscure facts that sound like lies, rather than things about the subject that many people know to be true. 

• The first presenter starts reading their presentation out loud. During their reading, everyone else can “buzz in” if they think they have spotted a truth. Players get one point if they correctly buzz in and spot the true statement, but lose a point if they buzz in incorrectly and have mistaken a lie for a truth.  

• If multiple people buzz in at once, the person who buzzed first gets to guess. If they are incorrect, the person who buzzed second can then guess, and so on. 

• At the end of the reading, the presenter gets one point for every true statement that had not been spotted by the other players. 

• If it is discovered that the presenter accidentally said something that is actually true when they had thought it was untrue, they also lose a point for having too many truths. 

• After a buzz has been resolved, the player keeps reading from where they left off, continuing until they next get buzzed. This goes on until they have reached the end of their presentation. 

After each player has had a turn to present, whoever has the most points wins!