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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.
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.
Lisa Valerie Kudrow is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer. After making appearances in several 1980s television sitcoms, Kudrow came to international prominence in the 1990s portraying Phoebe Buffay in the American sitcom Friends, which earned her Primetime Emmy and Screen Actors Guild awards. Kudrow also portrayed Phoebe's twin sister Ursula on both Friends and Mad About You. Kudrow has received several awards, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series from six nominations, two Screen Actors Guild Awards from 12 nominations, and a Golden Globe Award nomination. Her Friends character was widely popular while the series aired and was later recognized as one of the greatest female characters in American television.
Theatresports is a form of improvisational theatre, which uses the format of a competition for dramatic effect. Opposing teams can perform scenes based on audience suggestions, with ratings by the audience or by a panel of judges. Developed by director Keith Johnstone in Calgary, Alberta, in 1977, the concept of Theatresports originated in Johnstone's observations of techniques used in professional wrestling to generate heat, or audience reaction.
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.
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.
iO, or iO Chicago, was 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 taught and hosted performances of improvisational comedy. It was founded in 1981 by Del Close and Charna Halpern. The theater had many notable alumni, including Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert.
The Bad Dog Theatre Company is an improvisational theatre company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and established in 2003. The theatre is eclectic and broad in its production of shows, with a focus on short-form improv, but it has branched out to include the work of other schools of thought in improvisation.
Patti Stiles is an actor, director, playwright, teacher and improvisation artist living in Australia.
Rebecca Northan is a Canadian actor, improviser, theatre director, and creative artist. She is known for playing the hippie mother Diane Macleod on the CTV & The Comedy Network sitcom Alice, I Think. She was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. She is a graduate of the University of Calgary, and an alumna of the Loose Moose Theatre Company where she did her improv training with Keith Johnstone.
Becky Johnson is a Canadian comedian, writer, actress, improviser, craftsperson and organizer.
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.
Janet Van De Graaff is a Canadian improv artist and television actress.
Josephine Forsberg, ex-wife of film director Rolf Forsberg, was hired by Paul Sills and Viola Spolin to join the original Second City in 1959 as the female understudy and Spolin's teaching assistant. She became an expert in improvisational techniques for the theater, and by the mid 1960s she had taken over most of Spolin's and Sills's classes, as well as Spolin's children's theater company. From that point on most of the young performers that wanted to go onto the Second City stage studied with Forsberg for at least a year. These included Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Betty Thomas, Shelley Long, George Wendt, David Mamet, and Robert Townsend.
Taz VanRassel is a Canadian Comedian and Actor primarily known for his work in Improv theatre. He was nominated as Best Male Improviser in Canada at The Canadian Comedy Awards from 2007-2015, is a founding member of The Sunday Service improv troupe, of Instant Theatre Company, 9-year member of the Vancouver TheatreSports League and is a member and co-creator of the sketch comedy group Titmouse! with Eisner Award-winning comic book writer/comedian Ian Boothby.
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.
Improv Heaven and Hell is a Canadian comedy television series, which aired on The Comedy Network from 1998 to 2001. Hosted by Albert Howell and Andrew Currie, a comedy duo billed as The Devil's Advocates, the series featured a rotating cast of Canadian comedians and actors performing in an improvisational comedy competition similar to Whose Line Is It Anyway?
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.
Middleditch and Schwartz is an American improvisational comedy streaming television series created by and starring Thomas Middleditch and Ben Schwartz. The series of three hour-long performances was filmed at New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, and premiered on Netflix on April 21, 2020.
References
- ↑ Skinner, Shannon (13 May 2013). "Life Lessons From My Second City Improv Class". Huffington Post . Retrieved 7 November 2017.
