![]() WIT's logo | |
WIT team "Wallawoo" performing at a Harold Night in 2016 | |
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Formation | 1986 |
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Type | Theatre group |
Purpose | Improvisational comedy |
Location |
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Artistic director(s) | Mark Chalfant [2] |
Website | witdc |
Washington Improv Theater (WIT) is an improvisational comedy theater company in Washington, D.C., specializing in long-form improv. [3] [4] It was founded in 1986 by Carole Douglis. [5] [6] Its shows are based at Studio Theatre on the 14th Street corridor,[ needs update ] although its teams also use several other venues. Roughly 20,000 people attend WIT shows annually. [1]
WIT was founded in 1986 by Carole Douglis, but it went dormant in 1992. [5] It was revived by Douglis and several others as a consensus-based collective in 1998, [5] and performed initially in the basement of the Universalist National Memorial Church, and soon after other venues around D.C.[ citation needed ] It began offering its own improv training program in 2000. In 2004, it hired its first full-time artistic and executive director, Mark Chalfant. [5] In 2008,[ citation needed ] it began performing at the 150-seat black box at Source Theater on 14th Street, the former venue of Source Theatre Company now operated by CultureDC. [7] It continued expanding, and in FY2019 hosted 325 performances with an estimated 20,590 attendees. [2] In 2022–2023, it took up a one-year residency at Studio Theatre. [8]
WIT hosts over 300 performances annually featuring a number of different in-house ensembles and visiting teams. Its performances have received favorable reviews from critics. [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] They vary in form — for instance, iMusical is an improvised musical. [16]
WIT's Tuesday evening pay-what-you-can Harold Night performances, begun in April 2010, [5] feature four teams each performing half-hour harold sets. [17] WIT also hosts an annual improv marathon festival, Improvalooza, [18] a March madness-style competition, dubbed the Fighting Improv Smackdown Tournament, [19] and performances or lessons at various other venues, such as local schools [2] and the Kennedy Center. [20]
WIT's improv classes enrolled 1,728 students in FY2019 [2] across a five-level curriculum.[ citation needed ]
WIT runs a program for corporate clients, "WIT at Work". [21] [3] In 2019, the program worked with 79 clients with a total of 2900 participants. [2]