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.
Our Town is a three-act play written by American playwright Thornton Wilder in 1938. Described by Edward Albee as "the greatest American play ever written", it presents the fictional American town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 through the everyday lives of its citizens.
Julie Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera, and film. Her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997 and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for her direction and costume design. Her 2002 film Frida, about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, was nominated for five Academy Awards, including a Best Original Song nomination for Taymor's composition "Burn It Blue." She also directed the 2007 jukebox musical film Across the Universe, based on the music of the Beatles.
James Elliot Lapine is an American stage director, playwright, screenwriter, and librettist. He has won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical three times, for Into the Woods, Falsettos, and Passion. He has frequently collaborated with Stephen Sondheim and William Finn.
Nottingham Playhouse is a theatre in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England. It was first established as a repertory theatre in 1948 when it operated from a former cinema in Goldsmith Street. Directors during this period included Val May and Frank Dunlop. The current building opened in 1963.
Disney Theatrical Productions Limited (DTP), also known as Disney on Broadway, is the stageplay and musical production company of the Disney Theatrical Group, a subsidiary of Disney Entertainment, a major division and business unit of The Walt Disney Company.
Chay Yew is a playwright and stage director who was born in Singapore. He was artistic director of the Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago from 2011 to 2020.
The Coconut Grove Playhouse was a theatre in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida, United States. The building was originally constructed as a movie theater called the Player's State Theater. It opened on January 1, 1927, as a part of the Paramount chain. The movie house was designed by the architect Richard Kiehnel of Kiehnel and Elliott. It was built by local realtors Irving J. Thomas and Fin L. Pierce. Albert Peacock was the contractor.
Claudia Shear is an American actress and playwright. She was nominated for the Tony Award, Best Play and Best Actress for her play Dirty Blonde.
Stephen Sachs is an American stage director and playwright. He is the co-artistic director of the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, which he co-founded in 1990.
The Charles Playhouse is a theater at 74 Warrenton Street Boston in the Boston Theater District. The venue comprises an approximately 500-seat mainstage, which hosts the long-running Blue Man Group, and a 200-seat second stage that hosted Shear Madness until March 2020.
The 39 Steps is a parody play adapted from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock. The original concept and production of a four-actor version of the story was written by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, and premiered in 1996. Patrick Barlow rewrote this adaptation in 2005.
Marguerite Duffy, known professionally as Megan Terry, was an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre artist.
Three Men on a Horse is a three-act farce co-authored by John Cecil Holm and George Abbott. The comedy focuses on a man who discovers he has a talent for choosing the winning horse in a race as long as he never places a bet himself. Originally titled Hobby Horse by John Cecil Holm, Three Men On A Horse was a property controlled and produced by Alex Yokel, who reached out to Warner Bros. for financial assistance; Warners agreed to provide financing on the condition Yokel find someone to doctor the script and direct the Broadway production. George Abbott, the director, who had since 1932 directed and produced each of his Broadway productions, immediately saw the potential and rewrote the script and agreed to direct if he received co-author credit and split the author's royalties with Holm. Abbott wrote a third act, resulting in a new three-act play titled Three Men on a Horse.
Strawhead is a play by American writers Norman Mailer and Richard Hannum about Marilyn Monroe. The play is an adaptation of Mailer's 1980 book Of Women and Their Elegance, an imagined memoir told in Monroe's voice.
The Wizard of Oz is a musical with a book by John Kane, music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E. Y. Harburg. It has additional background music by Herbert Stothart. It is based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and the 1939 film version written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf.
The Drunkard; or, The Fallen Saved is an American temperance play first performed on February 12, 1844. A drama in five acts, it was perhaps the most popular play produced in the United States until the dramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin premiered in 1853. In New York City, P.T. Barnum presented it at his American Museum in a run of over 100 performances. It was among the first of the American temperance plays, and remained the most popular of them until it was eclipsed in 1858 by T. S. Arthur's Ten Nights in a Bar-Room.
Christopher Ashley is an American stage director. Since 2007, he has been the artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse.
Paul Pörtner was a German playwright, novelist, translator, and editor.
The Provincetown Playhouse is a historic theatre at 133 MacDougal Street between West 3rd and 4th streets in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is named for the Provincetown Players, who converted the former stable and wine-bottling plant into a theater in 1918.
