Celebrity

This is how to play Celebrity. I didn't make it up. I learned it
from some very fun people. I've played it with mentally ill drug
abusers, at my birthday party last year and recently, with
teenagers. I recommend it highly. It's tons of fun.

1. Pass out slips of paper to everyone. With a group of eight, I
pass out about ten. They should be instructed to write the names of
famous people. Historical figures, movie stars, television,
political, singers, people in the news, anyone whose name you would
recognize. I personally like names like Pia Zadora or Donna Hanover
(former wife of Rudy Guliani) because they are more interesting, not
so obvious. However, if you go too far in that direction (minor
Haitian politicians, Hungarian poets) you're going to have problems.

2. Fold all the slips of paper up and put them into a bowl.

3. Divide the people into two teams.

4. One person gets up and takes a name out of the bowl. The object
is to get his or her team to say the name on the slip without saying
the name on the slip. If it is Queen Elizabeth, you can't say, "The
queen of England." You'd say, "The mother of Prince Charles" or "The head of the British royal family."

Just go through the names
using anything you have at your disposal. You can sing, gesture,
describe them, say what they've done, who they are married to. If
you don't know the person, you have to try to get your team to say
it in other ways. For instance, "The first name of our current president" and "Not curved,
but..." Gets you George Straight. You get one minute. One point
for each correct answer. That's Round One.

5. Round Two. Put all the names back in the bowl. In this round,
you can only say two words. If you say more than two words, just drop it and go onto the next one. (The opposing team should huff and scream indignantly when this happens.)

6. Round Three is using only gestures. It's almost better to plan
for this round because you can get them into your repetoire.
However, that's difficult to do when you have a minute and you're
posed with how to explain Shania Twain to a group of people who are
not her fans.

It's very fun and I always laugh a lot, which is one of my favorite
things to do.