Watching students present improvs has been more fun than anything else I've ever done in the classroom.  Once they get good at it, students themselves far prefer theater games to lectures or discussions.  But is it legitimate to spend classroom time doing these sorts of games when one is supposed to be teaching social studies?  The answer is clearly yes.
 
Theater games need characters with strong motivations, some sort of conflict, complications, and an eventual resolution to the conflict.  They are made more interesting when the characters themselves have unique or at least unusual personalities. These are the same elements that make for good history.  Not names and dates, but historical figures with strong motivations coming into conflict with one another and attempting to resolve these conflicts as best they can--this is what makes up history.  Essential also is the exploration of how individual personality traits affect these conflicts.

The great historians and the great dramatists work alike.  Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Henry IV, and Richard III are outstanding as history as well as outstanding theater.  Thucydides' Peloponnesian War follows the same structural and thematic principles as the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.  Clearly, we should be able to teach history and the other social sciences through theater games.  The trick is to figure out how.