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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.
Mel Brooks is an American director, producer, writer, comedian, and actor. He is known as a creator of broad film farces and comedic parodies. Brooks began his career as a comic and a writer for Sid Caesar's variety show Your Show of Shows (1950–1954) alongside Woody Allen, Neil Simon, and Larry Gelbart. Together with Carl Reiner, he created the comic character The 2000 Year Old Man. He wrote, with Buck Henry, the hit television comedy series Get Smart, which ran from 1965 to 1970.
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of improvisation can apply to many different faculties, across all artistic, scientific, physical, cognitive, academic, and non-academic disciplines; see Applied improvisation.
Second City Television, commonly shortened to SCTV and later known as SCTV Network and SCTV Channel, is a Canadian television sketch comedy show that ran intermittently between 1976 and 1984. It was created as an offshoot from Toronto's Second City troupe. It is an example of a Canadian show that moved successfully to American TV, where it aired for three years on two different networks.
David William Thomas is a Canadian actor, comedian and television writer. He is best known for being one half of the duo Bob and Doug McKenzie with Rick Moranis. He appeared as Doug McKenzie on SCTV, for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award out of two nominations, and in the film Strange Brew (1983), which he also co-directed. As a duo, they made two albums, The Great White North and Strange Brew, the former gaining them a Grammy Award nomination and a Juno Award.
Bob and Doug McKenzie are a pair of fictional Canadian brothers who hosted "Great White North", a sketch which was introduced on SCTV for the show's third season when it moved to CBC Television in 1980. Bob is played by Rick Moranis and Doug is played by Dave Thomas. Although created originally as filler to both satisfy and mock network Canadian content demands, the duo became a pop culture phenomenon in both Canada and the United States. The characters were later revived for an animated series, Bob & Doug, which premiered on Global in 2009.
Strange Brew is a 1983 Canadian comedy film starring the popular SCTV characters Bob and Doug McKenzie, portrayed by Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis, who also served as co-directors. Co-stars include Max von Sydow, Paul Dooley, Lynne Griffin and Angus MacInnes.
The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise and is the first ongoing improvisational theater troupe to be continually based in Chicago, with training programs and live theatres in Toronto and Los Angeles. The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959, and has since become one of the most influential and prolific comedy theatres in the world. In February 2021, ZMC, a private equity investment firm based in Manhattan, purchased the Second City.
Randy Newman's Faust is a 1995 musical by American musician and songwriter Randy Newman, who based the work on the classic story of Faust, borrowing elements from the version by Goethe, as well as Milton's Paradise Lost, but updating the story to the modern day, and infusing it with humorous cynicism.
Mick Napier is an American director and improvisational theater teacher. He is the founder and artistic director of the Annoyance Theatre and a director at The Second City. He has directed Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch, Horatio Sanz, Nia Vardalos, Andy Richter, Jeff Garlin, and David Sedaris.
Rapid Fire Theatre (RFT) is an improvisational theatre company based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
The Second City's Next Comedy Legend was a summer reality show that aired on Canada's CBC Television in 2007. Contestants improvise and create characters for their chance to win a spot on the Second City Canadian Touring Company.
Flight of the Conchords is an American sitcom that was first shown on HBO on June 17, 2007. The show follows the adventures of Flight of the Conchords, a two-man band from New Zealand, as its members seek fame and success in New York City. The show stars the real-life duo of Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, who play fictionalized versions of themselves. A second season was announced on August 17, 2007, and shown from January 18, 2009. On December 11, 2009, the duo confirmed that the series would not return for a third season.
Janet Van De Graaff is a Canadian improv artist and television actress.
Created in 1971 by Josephine Forsberg, The Players Workshop was Chicago's only official school of improvisation for over a decade. Although it was never officially a part of The Second City cabaret theater, The Players Workshop was often referred to as Players Workshop Of The Second City, due to the school's close affiliation with the famous sketch comedy stage. From 1971 through the mid-1990s, performers flocked to The Players Workshop to study improv with Josephine Forsberg, Linnea Forsberg, Martin de Maat, or one of the school's many other instructors, in the hopes of eventually getting onto The Second City mainstage.
Lee Smart is a Canadian actor, writer and comedian currently based in Toronto.
Ronald Pederson is a Canadian actor, comedian and theatre director who has worked extensively throughout Canada and in the United States. He has performed with most of Canada's major theatres including The Stratford Festival, The Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, The Citadel Theatre, Alberta Theatre Projects, The Arts Club, The Vancouver Playhouse, The Young Centre, The Canadian Stage Company, The Tarragon Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, Soulpepper and The SummerWorks Festival. Pederson has also worked extensively in television and may be best known for his Canadian Comedy Award-Nominated work and his three seasons on Fox Television's MADtv.
Thomas Steven Middleditch is a Canadian actor and screenwriter. He is known for his role as Richard Hendricks in the HBO series Silicon Valley (2014–2019), earning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series nomination. He has voiced Penn Zero in the Disney XD animated series Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero (2014–2017), Harold Hutchins in Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) and Terry in the Hulu adult animated sci-fi series Solar Opposites. Middleditch also appears in ads for Verizon Wireless.
The 3rd Canadian Comedy Awards, presented by the Canadian Comedy Foundation for Excellence (CCFE), honoured the best live, television, and film comedy of 2001 and was held on 4 April 2002 at The Docks in Toronto, Ontario. The ceremony was hosted by Brent Butt. This was the first year that the ceremony was not televised, and the first year that no special awards were given.
Jamillah Ross is a Canadian comedian, actress, and singer-songwriter. She trained through Toronto's The Second City and has performed in improvisation troupes and on stage, television and film. She was in the cast of Show Stopping Number which won a Canadian Comedy Award (CCA) for best improvisational troupe.
References
- ↑ Farquharson, Vanessa (18 June 2008). "An Inconvenient Musical makes climate change a laughing matter". National Post . Retrieved 27 January 2011.