BATS Improv

Last updated March 12, 2019

BATS Improv (formerly known as "Bay Area Theatresports") is a non-profit improvisational theatre company in San Francisco. Founded in 1986, their unique style of acting-based improvisational theatre is well known in improv circles around the world. BATS is the largest improvisational theatre company and school in Northern California.

Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted: created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written script.

BATS takes its inspiration from the work of Theatresports creator Keith Johnstone and from San Francisco's own tradition of experimental improvisation. BATS is known for the quality, depth, scope and variety of its improvisational theatre programming.

Theatresports is a form of improvisational theatre, which uses the format of a competition for dramatic effect. Opposing teams can perform scenes based on audience suggestions, with ratings by the audience or by a panel of judges. Developed by director Keith Johnstone in Calgary, Alberta, in 1977, the concept of Theatre sports originated in Johnstone's observations of techniques used in professional wrestling to generate heat, or audience reaction.

Keith Johnstone is a British and Canadian pioneer of improvisational theatre, best known for inventing the Impro System, part of which are the Theatresports. He is also an educator, playwright, actor and theatre director.

Since 1986, BATS helped create and define a unique San Francisco style of long-form improvisation—a single-story 2-hour show, complete with intermission—which is distinct from improv seen in much of the rest of the country.

BATS is in residence at the 200-seat Bayfront Theater at historic Fort Mason Center in San Francisco and performs and offers classes year round.

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. San Francisco is the 13th-most populous city in the United States, and the fourth-most populous in California, with 884,363 residents as of 2017. It covers an area of about 46.89 square miles (121.4 km²), mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, making it the second-most densely populated large US city, and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. San Francisco is also part of the fifth-most populous primary statistical area in the United States, the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area.

In addition, BATS runs a successful corporate training program, performs improv in schools as a popular participant in the Bay Area's Young Audiences program, and provides free improv workshops through its Laughing Stock program to people living with HIV, AIDS, hepatitis C, cancer, and other chronic, life-threatening illness.

Notable BATS performers and alumni include:

Affiliated improv groups include:

True Fiction Magazine
3 FOR ALL
Fratelli Bologna

History

History of BATS Improv

Related Research Articles

Viola Spolin American academic and acting theorist

Viola Spolin was a theatre academic, educator and acting coach. She is considered an important innovator in 20th century American theater for creating directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life. These acting exercises she later called Theater Games and formed the first body of work that enabled other directors and actors to create improvisational theater. Her book Improvisation for the Theater, which published these techniques, includes her philosophy and her teaching and coaching methods, and is considered the "bible of improvisational theater". Spolin's contributions were seminal to the improvisational theater movement in the U.S. She is considered to be the mother of Improvisational theater. Her work has influenced American theater, television and film by providing new tools and techniques that are now used by actors, directors and writers.

The culture of San Francisco is major and diverse in terms of arts, music, cuisine, festivals, museums, and architecture. San Francisco's diversity of cultures along with its eccentricities are so great that they have greatly influenced the country and the world at large over the years. In 2012, Bloomberg Businessweek voted San Francisco as America's Best City.

Harold is a structure used in longform improvisational theatre that is performed by improv troupes and teams across the world. The Committee, a San Francisco improv group, performed the first Harold in Concord, California, in 1967. They were invited to a high school and decided to do their improvisations on the war in Vietnam. On the way home in a Volkswagen bus, they were discussing the performance, when one of them asked what they should call it. Allaudin (Bill) Mathieu called out "Harold", which was a joking reference to a line from A Hard Day's Night where a reporter asks George Harrison what he calls his haircut and he answers "Arthur". The form was further developed by improv teachers Del Close and Charna Halpern, as well as the Upright Citizens Brigade.

Unexpected Productions (UP) is an improvisational comedy company in Seattle, Washington, USA. From their home at the Market Theater in Seattle's historic Pike Place Market, in Post Alley, Unexpected Productions produces year-round shows, teaches improv classes, and hosts the Seattle International Festival of Improvisation.

Spontaneous Broadway is an advanced long-form improvised performance, based on audience suggestions. The audience typically submits titles of songs that have never been written, and the performers choose suggestions to create songs, the audience votes through acclamation on their favorite song, which is then used as the core of a brand new Broadway musical.

The Bad Dog Theatre Company is an improvisational theatre company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and established in 2003. The theatre is eclectic and broad in its production of shows, with a focus on short-form improv, but it has branched out to include the work of other schools of thought in improvisation.

Started in 2005 by Shaun Landry, artistic director of Oui Be Negroes, The San Francisco Improv Alliance is a group of actors dedicated to Improvisational Theater. The Alliance offers performance opportunities to upcoming ensembles, stages self-produced shows, co-production of pre-established ensembles, master class workshops and national ensembles and community outreach in the field of improvisational theatre.

The Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT) is Wellington’s not-for-profit, community-based improvisational theatre group. WIT performs and teaches the skills of improvisational theatre at community venues around the Wellington region.

Patti Stiles is an actor, director, playwright, teacher and improvisation artist living in Australia.

Un-Scripted Theater Company is an improv theater company based out of San Francisco, California. Unlike most improv troupes, Un-Scripted Theater Company does not perform just one kind of improv format, but rather 4 to 7 runs of uniquely different improv formats each year. Each season is set up like a "normal" theater season with 4 to 8 week runs of shows, each with its own Director, format, and vision.

Rapid Fire Theatre (RFT) is an improvisational theatre company based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

The Court Jesters is a professional improv company founded in 1989 and based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is a subsidiary of The Court Theatre professional theatre company, acting as a second company within the theatre.

Theatre Strike Force is the University of Florida's premier improv and sketch comedy troupe. The group also goes by TSF. The style of improv performed by Theatre Strike Force is a combination long form and short form. They both teach and perform improvisational comedy. They have six house teams which include both forms of improv as well as a sketch team. There are four long form house teams which are cast every semester and usually have six to eight members. The TSF Short Form Team is cast every semester as well and usually has fifteen to nineteen members. TSF Sketch is the final house team and usually has twelve to sixteen members, cast each semester.

William Hall is an American actor, director, trainer and mask maker in San Francisco, California. He is the editor of The Playbook, Improv Games for Performers.

Impro Melbourne is an improvisational theatre company in the Australian city of Melbourne. Formed by Russell Fletcher and Christine Keogh in 1996 it is now run by Artistic Directors Patti Stiles & Katherine Weaver, General Manager Rik Brown and Committee chaired by Vicki Kyriakakis. Impro Melbourne is an Incorporated Association.

Vancouver Theatresports League (VTSL) is a Vancouver based professional improvisational theatre company, best known for providing an impetus for the present worldwide interest in TheatreSports at Expo in 1986. The improv techniques pioneered by it are now used for everything from corporate training to TV parodies. In 2014 they started The Improv Comedy Institute, an educational offshoot of the company.

References

BATS Improv Official website

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.