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, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen – but it is also related to both the old French word "emprouer" and the English "improve", to improve. 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.
The Annoyance Theatre, or Annoyance Productions, is a theatre and associated ensemble based in Chicago, Illinois, that deals mainly in absurd and outrageous humor. Many people who have performed with the ensemble have gone on to become successful stage and screen actors. Popular productions have included Co-Ed Prison Sluts and That Darned Antichrist. Annoyance Productions currently runs classes in improvisation, writing, musical improvisation, acting, and solo work.
The Second City is an improvisational comedy enterprise. It is the oldest improvisational theater troupe to be continuously based in Chicago, with training programs and live theatres in Toronto and Los Angeles. The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959, and has become one of the most influential and prolific comedy theatres in the English-speaking world. In February 2021, ZMC, a private equity investment firm based in Manhattan, purchased the Second City.
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.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Chicago theater company founded in 1974 by Terry Kinney, Jeff Perry, and Gary Sinise in the Immaculate Conception grade school in Highland Park, Illinois and is now located in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood on Halsted Street. The theatre's name comes from Hermann Hesse's novel Steppenwolf, which original member Rick Argosh was reading during the company's inaugural production of Paul Zindel's play, And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little, in 1974. After occupying several theatres in Chicago, in 1991, it moved into its own purpose-built complex with three performing spaces, the largest seating 550.
Theater in Chicago describes not only theater performed in Chicago, Illinois, but also to the movement in Chicago that saw a number of small, meagerly funded companies grow to institutions of national and international significance. Chicago had long been a popular destination for touring productions, as well as original productions that transfer to Broadway and other cities. According to Variety editor Gordon Cox, beside New York City, Chicago has one of the most lively theater scenes in the United States. As many as 100 shows could be seen any given night from 200 companies as of 2018, some with national reputations and many in creative "storefront" theaters, demonstrating a vibrant theater scene "from the ground up". According to American Theatre magazine, Chicago's theater is "justly legendary".
iO, or iO Chicago, is 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 has many notable alumni, including Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert.
Scotch'n'Soda is a student-run theatre organization that resides on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University. Its initial dedication was the creation and production of original musicals, but has now taken to performing both professionally published and student-written materials. Students are welcome to write, compose, design, direct, perform in, and otherwise become involved with every aspect of each production. The organization is open to all Carnegie Mellon students from all backgrounds who are interested, and all performances are public with varying ticket prices.
The Northwestern University Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts exists as a for-profit operational and administrative body in association with the Northwestern University School of Communication with the specific charge of producing, managing, funding and administering the performing arts productions of the School of Communication, Department of Theatre and Department of Performance Studies, including programmatic responsibility for theatre, music theatre and dance. The Theatre and Interpretation Center was built in 1980, and renamed in 2015 to the Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts. The building contains a 450-seat thrust stage theater, a 350-seat proscenium theater, two smaller black box theaters, a dance performance space, full theatrical production facilities, and offices for the center. Its plain white exterior walls and boxy, utilitarian shape stand in stark contrast to the nearby University Library, and earned it the nickname "The Box The Library Came In" among Northwestern students.
The Merle Reskin Theatre is a performing arts venue located in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Originally named the Blackstone Theatre it was built in 1910. Renamed the Merle Reskin Theatre in 1992, it is now part of DePaul University, and is also used for events and performances of other groups. It serves as the home of the Chicago Playworks for Families and Young Audiences series produced by The Theatre School of DePaul.
Ari Roth is an American theatrical producer, playwright, director and educator. From 2014 to 2020 Roth served as the Artistic Director of Mosaic Theater Company of DC and was formerly the Artistic Director of Theater J at the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center from 1997 to 2014. Over 18 seasons at Theater J, he produced more than 129 productions and created festivals including "Locally Grown: Community Supported Art," "Voices from a Changing Middle East", and Theater J's acclaimed "Beyond The Stage" and "Artistic Director's Roundtable" series. In 2010, Roth was named as one of the Forward 50, honoring nationally prominent "men and women who are leading the American Jewish community into the 21st century, and in 2017 he was given the DC Mayor's Arts Award for Visionary Leadership. In 2021, Roth launched a new partnership with A. Lorraine Robinson, founding Voices Festival Productions, to be the new home for his long-running "Voices From a Changing Middle East Festival." Their first public event was a virtual benefit in support of "Ukrainian Playwrights Under Siege" in partnership with the Arts Club of Washington.
Philly Improv Theater, or PHIT, is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania comedy theater which formerly presented shows at The Adrienne Theatre in Center City Philadelphia. The theater currently operates a training center with programs in improv comedy, sketch comedy and stand-up comedy. PHIT's most notable alumnus is stand-up comedian Kent Haines, who was the 2008 winner of the Philly's Phunniest contest at Helium Comedy Club and has appeared on public radio show The Sound of Young America and Season 4 of Comedy Central's program Live at Gotham. In addition to Haines, other comedians from Philadelphia who appeared on stage at PHIT have gone on to perform at major comedy venues in cities like New York and Los Angeles, founded their own theatre companies, and appeared in touring productions for The Second City.
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. It is the oldest form of drama, though live theatre has now been joined by modern recorded forms. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. Places, normally buildings, where performances regularly take place are also called "theatres", as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον, itself from θεάομαι.
The Committee was a San Francisco-based improvisational comedy group founded by Alan Myerson and Jessica Myerson. The Myersons were both alums of The Second City in Chicago. The Committee opened April 10, 1963 at 622 Broadway in a 300-seat Cabaret theater that used to be an indoor bocce ball court in San Francisco's North Beach.
TimeLine Theatre Company is a not-for-profit theatre company located in the Lakeview East neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1997, TimeLine is a midsize theater with an annual budget exceeding $1 million.
The Greenhouse Theater Center is a professional, non-profit theater located in the heart of Chicago's Lincoln Park. The Greenhouse Theater Center hosts multiple Off-Loop theater companies, including Eclipse Theatre Company, Hubris Productions, MPAACT, Organic Theatre Company, Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, The Magic Cabaret, and Theater Seven Of Chicago.
The Practical Theatre Company is a Chicago-based theatre company founded by Northwestern University students and active throughout the 1980s before returning to the stage in 2010. Its productions have included new plays, satiric agitprop, rock and roll events, and a series of successful improvisational comedy revues. The PTC, whose motto is "Art is Good", is notable for the fact that the entire cast of its 1982 improvisational comedy revue, The Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee was hired by Saturday Night Live.
The Sacred Fools Theater Company is a Los Angeles–based theatre company and nonprofit organization. Founded in January 1997, it's a member organization of the LA Stage Alliance.
Established on June 18, 1904, Chicago’s Pekin Theatre was the first black owned musical and vaudeville stock theatre in the United States. Between 1904 and around 1915, the Pekin Club and its Pekin Theatre served as a training ground and showcase for Black theatrical talent, vaudeville acts, and musical comedies. Additionally, the theatre allowed “African-American theatre artists with an opportunity to master theater craft and contribute significantly to the development of an emerging Black theater tradition”. It was known by various names.
