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.
The Compass Players was an improvisational theatre revue active from 1955 to 1958 in Chicago and St. Louis. Founded by David Shepherd and Paul Sills, it is considered to be the first improvisational theater in the United States.
The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise. It is the oldest improvisational theater troupe to be continuously based in Chicago, with training programs and live theaters in Toronto and New York. Since its debut in 1959, it has become one of the most influential and renowned in the English-speaking world. In February 2021, ZMC, a private equity investment firm based in Manhattan, purchased the Second City.
Creativity techniques are methods that encourage creative actions, whether in the arts or sciences. They focus on a variety of aspects of creativity, including techniques for idea generation and divergent thinking, methods of re-framing problems, changes in the affective environment and so on. They can be used as part of problem solving, artistic expression, or therapy.
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.
Harold is a structure used in long-form improvisational theatre that is performed by improv troupes and teams across the world. In the Harold structure, characters and themes are introduced and then recur in a series of connected scenes. It was first performed in California by The Committee in 1967.
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.
iO, or iO Chicago, is an improv theater and training center in central Chicago, with a former branch in Los Angeles, called iO West and in Raleigh, North Carolina called iO South. The theater teaches and hosts performances of improvisational comedy. It was founded in 1981 by Del Close and Charna Halpern. The theater has many notable alumni, including Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert.
The Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT) is a not-for-profit, community-based improvisational theatre group in Wellington, New Zealand. It is run by a committee elected by and from its forty to sixty active members. WIT performs both long and short-form improvisation.
Martin de Maat was a teacher and artistic director at The Second City in Chicago. He also taught at Columbia College and Players Workshop. He studied under Viola Spolin. De Maat and Del Close were the two main figures of the Chicago improvisational comedy scene in the late 80's and throughout the 1990s.
Paul Sills was an American director and improvisation teacher, and the original director of Chicago's The Second City.
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.
Josephine Forsberg was an American comedian, teacher and author.
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. It is the oldest form of drama, though live theatre has now been joined by modern recorded forms. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. Places, normally buildings, where performances regularly take place are also called "theatres", as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι.
Jason Hale is an American actor, international theatre director, professor and chair of theatre at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.
Howard Alk was an American filmmaker based in Chicago, Illinois, and an original co-founder of The Second City theater troupe. In the 1960s he began to work in film with the Chicago Film Group, filming and directing documentaries, completing American Revolution 2 (1969) and The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971). He also collaborated for years with singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, producing films with him through 1981.
"Yes, and ...", also referred to as "Yes, and ..." thinking, is a rule-of-thumb in improvisational comedy that suggests that an improviser should accept what another improviser has stated ("yes") and then expand on that line of thinking ("and"). The principle does not forbid disagreements between the improvisers' characters, but states that one should not reject the basic premises introduced by the other person, as this would throw them off and harm the flow of the scene.
![The Ligue d'improvisation montrealaise [fr] (LIM) is a league of improvisational theatre based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada Ligue d'improvisation montrealaise (LIM) 20101031-01.jpg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f6/Ligue_d%27improvisation_montr%C3%A9alaise_%28LIM%29_20101031-01.jpg/180px-Ligue_d%27improvisation_montr%C3%A9alaise_%28LIM%29_20101031-01.jpg)
