Information on the Harold

The Harold was created by Del Close and Charna Halpern.  A group of
improvisers take a single suggestion from the audience and use it
as a springboard to create thirty to forty-five minutes of scenes,
games and monologues. As the improvisers perform, they discover
connections, interweaving their characters and stories to create a
cohesive universe. Often enlightening, never obsequious, The Harold is
an extemporaneously entertaining, serendipitously aforementioned piece
of theater which is destined to elevate your mind to galactic proportions.

At a time when most improvisation mainly focused on creating single
scenes, Del devised the Harold as something not unlike a sonata
form. Several themes would be established, a community of characters
would be introduced, and then the resulting scenes would play off each
other in comedic counterpoint - characters from one environment moving
to another and phrases and images recurring, each time accruing new
meaning. Going to this from conventional sketches was like going from
arithmetic to calculus. (Why was it called the Harold? When he introduced
it, one of his students said, "Del, you've invented something, you get
to name it." Del said, "Well, the Beatles called their haircut Arthur,
so I'll call this Harold." He later regretted the flipness. "Probably
my most significant contribution and it's got that stupid name.")

Edits (changing scenes) 

Source:  fuzzyco.com

1.  Walking completely in front of the scene, will clear the stage and a
    completely new scene will start when you have crossed the stage and
    turn, trust that your fellow players will be there to help.
2.  Tag out a person or people in the scene by tapping their shoulder,
    the remaining person(s) are the same characters that they were
    before the tag out, but in a different place or time.
3.  Do a monologue from a scene by just stepping straight out to the
    audience and delivering to them, come back to the scene when done or
    cross the stage when done to clear the stage. The scene behind can
    continue in slow motion silence or freeze (I prefer the freeze).
4.  You can also do a monologue during a scene you are not in. Walk up
    the side of the scene to the front of the stage and deliver the
    monologue, when done either go straight back and the scene will
    continue or cross the stage and the scene will be edited.
5.  Start a solo scene by tagging out all of the characters on stage,
    since you did not cross the front of the scene no one should come
    out to join you, trust that your fellow players will edit you when
    you need it.
6.  Initiate a split scene by starting a scene to the side of the scene
    currently on stage. Give and take is very important, as the audience
    cannot hear both scenes at the same time. Some ways it is used is to
    show the same character(s) at a different time, or the effect on
    other at the same time. Either scene should feel free to leave, as
    one becomes the focus.
7.  The swinging gate is the hardest to get started (for me). The idea
    is that there is a split scene on stage but one character (the
    middle one) is in both. While one scene is going the other is
    frozen. Anyone can initiate the swing to the other scene. The best
    way I've used to start the gate, is to walk up the side all the way
    to the front of the stage to let your fellow players on stage know
    you are editing in some way. Then turn back to the (now) middle
    character and make a statement (say something), they should turn to
    join you. Feel free to leave the gate when you feel your scene
    (either one) is done, leaving the other scene on stage. Two of these
    COULD be done at the same time (three scenes on stage) I've only
    tried this once.