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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.
Ryan Lee Stiles is an American-Canadian comedian and actor. His work is often associated with improvisational comedy. He is best known for his work on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and for his role as Lewis Kiniski on The Drew Carey Show. He also played Herb Melnick on the CBS comedy Two and a Half Men and was a performer on the show Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza.
Colin Andrew Mochrie is a Scottish-born Canadian actor, writer, producer and improvisational comedian, best known for his appearances on the British and American versions of the improvisational TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway?.
Patrick McKenna is a Canadian comedian and actor. He is best known for playing Harold Green on the television series The Red Green Show and Marty Stevens on the television series Traders.
Viola Spolin was an American 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.
Kathryn Greenwood is a Canadian actress and comedian. She appeared on the American version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? numerous times, and played Grace Bailey on the Canadian television drama series Wind at My Back.
John Kapelos is a Canadian actor from London, Ontario. He is best known for his portrayals of janitor Carl Reed in The Breakfast Club and Detective Donald Schanke in Forever Knight.
Roman Danylo is a Canadian comedian, improviser and actor based out of Vancouver, British Columbia. He is best known for his starring role in the CTV Television Network show Comedy Inc.
Ike Barinholtz is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his starring roles in the comedy series MADtv (2002–2007), Eastbound & Down (2012), The Mindy Project (2012–2017), Bless the Harts (2019–2021), The Afterparty (2022), and History of the World, Part II (2023).
Miriam Flynn is an American voice and character actress. She is best known as Cousin Catherine in the National Lampoon's Vacation and Grandma Longneck in The Land Before Time franchises. She has acted in other films and in several television series, the latter including a recurring role as Sister Helen on the Fox/WB sitcom Grounded for Life.
Frangela is a Los Angeles-based comedy duo composed of comedians Frances Callier and Angela V. Shelton, both of The Second City.
Neil Crone is a Canadian actor and writer. He is known for portraying Fred Tupper in Little Mosque on the Prairie, Jerry Whitehall in Cube 2: Hypercube and the voices of Gordon, Diesel 10 and Splatter in Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000) and reprises Gordon in the US dub in the reboot, Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go!.
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My Own Private Oshawa is a theatrical play written and performed by Jonathan Wilson, which premiered in 1996. A one-man show taking place aboard a GO Train in which Wilson is travelling home from Toronto to Oshawa for a visit, the show is performed as a monologue about his childhood experiences as a repressed and closeted gay kid, and the impact of his more flamboyantly gay friend Gordon on his sense of self. The ultimate purpose of the trip, to attend Gordon's funeral following his death of AIDS, is revealed only at the end of the play.
Bill Chott is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Mr. Laritate on the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place and Inspector Nakamura in the Netflix series Pluto.
This Sitcom Is...Not to Be Repeated is a Canadian comedy television series, which aired on The Comedy Network in 2001. Created by and starring Ed Sahely, Kathy Greenwood and Jonathan Wilson based on their stage show Not to Be Repeated, the series incorporated improvisational comedy techniques.
Scott Faulconbridge is a Canadian comedian, writer, and actor. He is known in North America and abroad for his stand-up routines. He is a regular on CBC radio's The Debaters with Steve Patterson and has worked extensively in stand-up, television, and film. He has been on Just For Laughs, appeared on NBC's Last Comic Standing, and was nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award in 2009.
Phil Hanley is a Canadian stand-up comedian and actor. He had a half-hour special on Comedy Central in 2015 and released an hour-long stand-up special Ooh La La on his YouTube channel in 2022. Time Out described him as a "master of crowdwork".
References
- ↑ "Season 2 Characters". The Classic Red Green Page.
- ↑ "A Brand-New Play Every Night? AIIEEE!" Archived 2013-06-20 at archive.today . Eye Weekly , May 4, 1995.
- ↑ "Training Center - Faculty - The Second City - 50 Years of Funny". The Second City. Archived from the original on 2010-01-02. Retrieved 2011-09-30.
- ↑ "Honest Ed". NOW , May 12, 2005.