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.
Physical theatre is a genre of theatrical performance that encompasses storytelling primarily through physical movement. Although several performance theatre disciplines are often described as "physical theatre," the genre's characteristic aspect is a reliance on the performers' physical motion rather than, or combined with, text to convey storytelling. Performers can communicate through various body gestures.
Jean-Louis Bernard Barrault was a French actor, director and mime artist who worked on both screen and stage.
Jacques Lecoq, was a French stage actor and acting movement coach. He was best known for his teaching methods in physical theatre, movement, and mime which he taught at the school he founded in Paris known as École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq. He taught there from 1956 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1999.
École internationale de théâtre Jacques Lecoq is a school of physical theatre located on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.
A mime artist or just mime is a person who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art. Miming involves acting out a story through body motions, without the use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer would typically be referred to as a mummer. Miming is distinguished from silent comedy, in which the artist is a character in a film or skit without sound.
The Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts is a performing arts educational institution based in London, England. It was founded in 1911 by the actress Italia Conti and delivers a variety of disciplines and theatre training at Secondary Education, Further Education and Higher Education.
Riverside Studios is an arts centre on the banks of the River Thames in Hammersmith, London, England. The venue plays host to contemporary performance, film, visual art exhibitions and television production.
Daniel Andrew Stein is an American modern performer of a type of physical theater known as corporeal mime.
Thomas Leabhart is an American corporeal mime and corporeal mime teacher.
Philippe Gaulier is a French master clown, pedagogue, and professor of theatre. He is the founder of École Philippe Gaulier, a prestigious French theatre school in Étampes, outside Paris. He studied under Jacques Lecoq in the mid-1960s and was an instructor at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in the late 1970s. As well as performing as a clown, he is also a playwright and director. He has published The Tormentor, a book discussing his thoughts on the theatre and containing exercises designed to develop an actor's skill.
Drama Centre London is a British drama school in King's Cross, London, where it moved in 2011 after a major reshaping of the University of the Arts London. The school is part of Central Saint Martins, a constituent college of the university. In March 2020 UAL announced that the Drama Centre would close when the current students had completed their courses.
London Film School (LFS) is a film school in London and is situated in a converted brewery in Covent Garden, London, neighbouring Soho, a hub of the UK film industry. It is the oldest film school in the UK.
Carlo Mazzone-Clementi was a performer and founder of two schools of commedia, mime and physical theater as well as a contemporary and colleague of leaders of modern European theater. From his arrival in the USA in 1957, he was largely responsible for the spreading of commedia dell'arte in North America.
Devised theatre - frequently called collective creation - is a method of theatre-making in which the script or performance score originates from collaborative, often improvisatory work by a performing ensemble. The ensemble is typically made up of actors, but other categories of theatre practitioner may also be central to this process of generative collaboration, such as visual artists, composers, and choreographers; indeed, in many instances, the contributions of collaborating artists may transcend professional specialization. This process is similar to that of commedia dell'arte and street theatre. It also shares some common principles with improvisational theatre; however, in devising, improvisation is typically confined to the creation process: by the time a devised piece is presented to the public, it usually has a fixed, or partly fixed form. Historically, devised theatre is also strongly aligned with physical theatre, due at least in part to the fact that training in such physical performance forms as commedia, mime, and clown tends to produce an actor-creator with much to contribute to the creation of original work.
Barbara Schneider originally from Germany, is an American playwright.
Sarah McCarron is an American actor and writer currently living and working in Los Angeles. She has worked and performed with companies in both Europe and the United States, including the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Arden Theatre Company (Philadelphia), Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles, Gas & Electric Arts, InterAct Theatre, etc. She worked with Pig Iron Theatre Company to create, develop, and perform in PAY UP, based on the work of Yale economist Keith Chen. The show was nominated for a Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theater. McCarron, as a part of Centrifuge Ensemble, was commissioned to create a show for the Bebersee Festival in Germany. McCarron was Artist in Residence at the Community Education Center in Philadelphia. She received multiple grants, including from the Leeway Foundation, to write and produce a new play called Owning Up to the Corn, about Appalachia in 2008. McCarron works in theatre, film, and television.
Associated Studios is a drama school in London, offering courses in acting, musical theatre, opera and commercial/popular music.
Noam Meiri is an Israeli theater artist, actor, director and a world-renowned acting teacher. Meiri is a co-founder of the Tel Aviv Haguf Theater School and Stage for Physical theatre, inspired by the method of Jacques Lecoq. Since 1999 he has resided as a professor of Physical Theater in Folkwang University of the Arts at Essen, Germany.
Imago Theatre is a theatre company based in Portland, Oregon, United States. Co-Artistic Directors, Carol Triffle and Jerry Mouawad, began collaborating in 1979 and founded Imago Theatre in 1982.
