I have some advice for people wanting to do improvisation for comedy skits. If you have to do skits with someone else it is best not to go up on stage with something contrived. That way the comic is open to picking up signals form the other person. Often the silent moment is merited rather than the spoke word and there are a number of exercises that the get the actor to be more spontaneous.
Comic moments are more appreciated when the person is not too much in his head and he acts off the other person. There is a play between two people where they each wear a hat and the object is to try to get into the personal space of the other person and take off the hat. Distracting the person well enough does that. He does not suspect you would want to want to snatch the hat because he is caught off guard. One way to avoid losing is to bend backwards and the person who fails to snatch the hat is then the loser.
Another game that is useful in generating spontaneity of the unspoken work is by taking only when touching the other actor. So the actor wants to talk in order to drive the play forward and so he has to think of how he can approach the other person naturally. One does not want to create a scene that seems pushed.
There are other theatrical gamers that can be used to contribute to a dramatic moment. Many people disregard that there is a fine line between drama and comedy and many a dramatic element like a soldier watching a prisoner dig a trench, can be used to create a comic moment because he is trying to solicit something other than labor.
Another way to get the comic to be more spontaneous is to incorporate sounds into the discourse so that more effort can be made with the physicality of the comedy and there is less attention spent on looking for words that are most often unnecessary.
