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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, a 501c3 Non-profit organization, 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]
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. 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.
Matthew Gregory Besser is an American actor, comedian, director, producer, writer, and one of the four founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade sketch comedy troupe, who had their own show on Comedy Central from 1998 to 2000. He hosts the improvisation-based podcast Improv4humans on the Earwolf podcasting network.
Harold is a structure used in longform 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.
Charna Halpern is an American comedian who is co-founder of the ImprovOlympic, now known as iO. Upon iO's founding, in 1983, with partner Del Close, she began teaching Harold to many students in the Chicago theater community. Many prominent comedians performed at iO, from Neil Flynn to Jack McBrayer. Also appearing were up and coming comedic minds such as Craig Cackowski.
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.
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.
Un-Scripted Theater Company® is an improvisational theater company in San Francisco, California. Un-Scripted Theater Company performs many kinds of improv formats, such as comedy, mystery, drama, adventure, and musicals, each presented in 4 to 6 week runs each season, each with its own Director, format, and vision. Un-Scripted specializes in narrative and genre-based "single-story" improvised theater.
SAK Comedy Lab (SAK) is a 250-seat Improvisational Comedy (Improv) theater in downtown Orlando, Florida. SAK's most notable alumnus is actor Wayne Brady, who has played as a guest player in several SAK shows since finding fame as a performer on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Let's Make A Deal, Chappelle's Show, and other projects. SAK's regular performers are referred to as the SAK Ensemble.
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.
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.
Oui Be Negroes is an African-American improvisational sketch comedy ensemble, founded by Artistic Director Shaun Landry and Director Hans Summers. They worked together for years in Chicago with the Underground Theatre Conspiracy, and had thrown around the idea of an African-American-driven sketch and improvisational comedy troupe, which would be geared specifically toward social and political humor.
Whirled News Tonight is a weekly improvised satire that has performed since 2003 at the iO Theater in Chicago, Illinois.
The Committee was a San Francisco-based improvisational comedy group founded by Alan Myerson and Jessica Myerson. The Myersons were both alums of The Second City in Chicago. The Committee opened April 10, 1963 at 622 Broadway in a 300-seat Cabaret theater that used to be an indoor bocce ball court in San Francisco's North Beach.
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.
'Senior theatre' is a form of drama designed specifically for older adults, where seniors are actively involved.
M.I.'s Westside Comedy Theater is a comedy club, theater, bar, and comedy training center located in Santa Monica, California.
