 The front of Jet City Improv, from across University Ave. | |
| Formation | March 18, 1992 |
|---|---|
| Type | Non-profit |
| Location |
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Parent organization | Wing-It Productions |
| Website | jetcityimprov |
Jet City Improv is an Improvisational theatre troupe from Seattle, Washington, United States. [1] [2] The troupe was founded in 1992 and is operated by Wing-It Productions, a 501(c)(3) non-profit company, from their theater located at 55th Avenue and University Way NE in Seattle's U-District. [3]
Jet City Improv was founded in 1992 by Mike Christensen and Andrew McMasters and debuted with a free show on March 18, 1992, at the Second Story Studios in Seattle. [4] In July 1993, Jet City Improv began performing every Friday night at the Northwest Actors Studio, moving to the Belltown Theater Center in October 1994, where they performed on Fridays and Saturdays at 10:30pm, a tradition that Jet City maintains until the present day.
In December 1994 Christensen and McMasters founded Wing-It Productions to take on the production of Jet City Improv's activities. Jet City Improv's performances were relocated to the Ethnic Cultural Theater on the University of Washington campus in 1997. In October 1997, Jet City debuted the first Twisted Flick, an improvised re-dubbing of Creature from the Black Lagoon . [5] Jet City produced the inaugural Jet City Improv New Year's Eve show on December 31, 1999, entitled the "Y2K Bash" . In June 2000 Twisted Flicks began performing for the Fremont Outdoor Movies. In January 2001, Jet City Improv moved performances to the University Heights Center for approximately one year. Twisted Flicks moved into the Paradox Theater in September 2001.
The Lost Folio, Jet City's first longform show, premiered in April 2002. In February 2003 Jet City Improv took over the lease to the former Paradox Theater, thus bringing all performances into one venue. It was renamed the Historic University Theater. In February 2003 Jet City Improv co-produced the first annual Seattle Festival of Improv Theater (SFIT). [6]
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Jet City primarily produces three shows: Jet City Improv, Twisted Flicks, and the Jet City Presents Series. Jet City Improv is a 90-minute improv show performed three times a week. Twisted Flicks consists of a B-movie played with the sound turned off, with improvised dialogue and sound effects over the top based on suggestions from the audience, as well as an improvised score from a musician. Jet City Presents is a rotating improvised longform show, performed on Thursdays and Fridays.
Jet City also runs improv courses and drop-in classes for the public, as well as educational products for school students and corporate team-building and communication workshops. The company began an outreach program in early 1998 providing free performances for events, children's camps and fundraisers. This program performs annual performances for the NW Burn Foundation, American Cancer Society and other children's camps. The program was expanded in 2001 to provide free workshops for at risk and incarcerated youth in the Seattle Area, with classes running weekly at the Seattle Juvenile Detention facility and the Sanctuary Arts Center.
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.
Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. 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.
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Dudley Riggs was an improvisational comedian who created the Instant Theater Company in New York, which later moved to Minneapolis to become the Brave New Workshop comedy troupe.
Friday Nite Improvs, or Friday Night Improvs (FNI), was a long-running weekly improvisational comedy show staged on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The show functioned as an improv jam, performed by improv actors who don't normally work together. FNI was unique in that, in addition to the audience's providing improv suggestions, the performers are all pulled from volunteers in the audience. FNI ended in 2014. A student improv group, Ruckus, has succeeded FNI as a resident improv group on the University of Pittsburgh's campus.
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The Fracas! Improv Festival is a three-day annual improvisational theatre festival held at The University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. The festival is hosted by Second Nature Improv, one of USC's improv troupes. In addition to performances, the festival hosts discussion panels with professional improvisers currently working in television, film, and/or theatre, as well as improv workshops. While the performances and panels are open to the public, workshops are available only to registered festival participants.
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The Purple Crayon of Yale, or the Purple Crayon, is an improvisational theater group at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. The group specializes in longform improv, such as the Harold. The Purple Crayon is Yale's second-oldest improv group, after the Ex!t Players, and the oldest collegiate longform group in the country. The Purple Crayon currently consists of twelve members, and is directed by Noam Scully '25 and Amara Neal '26.
'Senior theatre' is a form of drama designed specifically for older adults, where seniors are actively involved.
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