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.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to theatre:
A comedy club is a venue where a variety of comedic acts perform to a live audience. Although the term usually refers to establishments that feature stand-up comedians, it can also feature other forms of comedy such as improvisational comedians, impersonators, impressionists, magicians and ventriloquists.
The Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) is an improvisational and sketch comedy group that emerged from Chicago's ImprovOlympic in 1990. The original incarnation of the group consisted of Amy Poehler, Matthew Walsh, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, Adam McKay, Rick Roman, Horatio Sanz and Drew Franklin. Other early members included Neil Flynn, Armando Diaz, Ali Farahnakian and Rich Fulcher.
Alternative comedy is a term coined in the 1980s for a style of comedy that makes a conscious break with the mainstream comedic style of an era. The phrase has had different connotations in different contexts: in the UK, it was used to describe content that was an "alternative" to the mainstream stand-up of the day which took place in working men's clubs, and was characterised by unoriginal gags often containing elements of sexism and racism. In other contexts, it is the nature of the form that is "alternative", avoiding reliance on a standardised structure of a sequence of jokes with punch lines. Patton Oswalt has defined it as "comedy where the audience has no pre-set expectations about the crowd, and vice versa. In comedy clubs, there tends to be a certain vibe—alternative comedy explores different types of material."
Michael Portnoy is an American visual artist, filmmaker, choreographer and performance artist. He calls himself a "Director of Behavior". He has been described in Art in America as "one of the most interesting performance artists anywhere", and by Artforum as "the great Absurdist".
The Flea Theater is a theater in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It presents primarily experimental theatre by Black, brown, and queer artists, as well as a venue for film stars to act on a 74-seat stage. The theater was founded in 1996 by Jim Simpson, Sigourney Weaver, Mac Wellman, and Kyle Chepulis. The Flea earned early acclaim for original productions of post-9-11 play The Guys and political works by A. R. Gurney. According to the New York Times, "Since its inception in 1996, The Flea has presented over 100 plays and numerous dance and live music performances. Under Artistic Director Jim Simpson and Producing Director Carol Ostrow, The Flea is one of New York’s leading off-off-Broadway companies."
Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources.
The Knitting Factory is a nightclub in New York City that features eclectic music and entertainment and is co-owned and co-operated by Knitting Factory Entertainment. After opening in 1987, various other locations were opened in the United States.
John Jesurun is a writer, director and multi-media artist, based in New York City. His work Chang in a Void Moon is a live serial running since 1983, originally at the Pyramid Club in the East Village and now less frequently at venues worldwide. He was born 1951 in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Collective:Unconscious is a non-profit corporation, founded in New York City in 1993, and incorporated in 1995. Originally based on Avenue B in Alphabet City, it moved to 145 Ludlow Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side; in 2004 it relocated to Tribeca until July 2008.
The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) is a multi-venue arts center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, which opened on October 3, 2008. The building is named after Curtis Priem, co-founder of NVIDIA and graduate of the RPI Class of 1982, who donated $40 million to the Institute in 2004.
Francis "Faceboy" Hall is an American actor, producer, and activist working in the New York City arts community. Hall, the younger brother of poet and King Missile frontman John S. Hall, is one of the founding members of the Art Stars. Hall has appeared in numerous stage productions and several films, including Robert Downey Sr.'s Too Much Sun and the television series 'Electra Elf'. In addition, Hall was a founding member of the Dance Liberation Front where he has worked to overturn New York City's "no dancing" cabaret laws. A poet and performer himself, Faceboy is best known as the host of the weekly Faceboyz Open Mic, which is now considered to be the longest continually running open mic in New York. He hosted 'Faceboyz Folliez', a monthly show that took place at the Bowery Poetry Club.
Donald Travis Stewart, known professionally as Trav S.D., is an American author, journalist, playwright and stage performer. He has been called a leading figure in the New Vaudeville and Indie Theater movements.
The Bay Area Improv Scene is a commonly used name for a loose association of musicians and composers centered in the San Francisco Bay Area who create a style of music that evolved largely from avant-garde jazz and modern classical music, with influences from other areas such as electronic art music, free improvisation, and musique concrète. Other names of this scene tend to use phrases such as "Creative Music" to try to incorporate a wider focus than just the improvisational approach.
Beth Lapides is an American writer, comedian, producer and host, best known for creating Un-Cabaret.
Tom X. Chao is a comedic playwright, actor, and musician based in New York City whose works have been produced in the United States and Canada. Chao regularly stars in his own work, usually playing an unflattering autobiographical character named "Tom." During the 1990s, Chao was a member of New York City's Art Stars alternative performance scene, and The New York Times called him "a dryly funny downtown comedian," and Time Out New York labeled him a "hilariously angsty writer-performer." He is best known for his play Cats Can See the Devil, which appears in Plays and Playwrights 2004.
Neal Medlyn is a New York City-based performance artist and musician. His works include Champagne Jerry, his reenactment of a Beyonce concert DVD, his Pop Star Series of performance pieces, and his work in the variety show, Our Hit Parade. He has appeared on Bridget Everett's Comedy Central special, in the online series People Are Detectives, and in video work by the artist Guy Richards Smit.
The Women's Interart Center was a New York City-based multidisciplinary arts organization conceived as an artists' collective in 1969 and formally delineated in 1970 under the auspices of Women Artists in Revolution (WAR) and Feminists in the Arts. In 1971, it found a permanent home on Manhattan's far West Side.
Jonathan Reynolds was an American writer. He practiced as an actor for a short period before becoming a writer. He wrote for David Frost and Dick Cavett before a breakthrough with two comedy plays which ran off-Broadway in 1975. His most successful play was Geniuses at Playwrights Horizons in 1982, which was inspired by his time on the set of the war movie Apocalypse Now. Reynolds wrote several screenplays, receiving praise for his writing on the 1984 romantic comedy Micki & Maude. His other film work was less well received and he was awarded the 1988 Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay for 1987's Leonard Part 6. Reynolds returned to writing plays in the late 1990s and received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama nomination for his work on the 1997 play Stonewall Jackson's House. He wrote a food column for The New York Times Magazine between 2000 and 2005, publishing a selection of columns in book form in 2006. Reynolds returned to acting in 2003 leading in Dinner with Demons at the Second Stage Theater.
