The Improv Movement is Upon Us!

On my way back to California from Camp Improv Utopia East over Labor Day weekend it all finally came together for me: The improv movement is here and is not going to stop. Recently, the bigger improv theaters, iO, Second City, The Annoyance and UCB have all embarked on getting bigger and better spaces. That tells you something about the state of improv when the big theaters are looking to grow. There are tons more improvisors than ever before. But guess what? It’s not just in the big cities.

Mostly overlooked is the improv movement that’s happening in our country and beyond. Pretty much every state has an improv theater or festival now. On our site alone we have 74 theaters listed, 80 festivals, over 700 improv troupes and over 1,300 members. Sure we have tons more work ahead of us, but we accept the challenge.

During camp I met, for the first time, many theaters and festivals I’ve never come in contact with like The Baltimore Improv Group, The Providence Improv Festival, District Improv Festival, Arcade Comedy Theater, Figment Theater, Philly Improv Theater (PHIT) and so many more. What makes me smile the most is that these improvisors, who work their 9 to 5 jobs accounting, administrating and waiting tables, have this inner passion that is screaming inside of them to go forth and make improv. Getting a space, in a pizza parlor, a bar, on the street…Wherever they can! They don’t see this as a financial endeavor but an improv endeavor. You see it radiating in their eyes when they talk to you about what they’re doing in their towns and how important it is, not to them, but to their cities and communities. They’ve discovered this great thing that makes them happy and they want to give it back.

That’s what it’s all about. That’s what the National Improv Network was founded on. That’s why we do all this. It isn’t for fame or money. It’s for us as a community. We want to be heard, we want everyone to know about this art-form and we will scream it to anyone that will listen. NIN is happy to do our small part in all of this, but we are here and improv is here throughout the country because of you! YES YOU! reading this right now! It’s for real now and it can’t be denied. And we want to get better at it, we want to do more with it and we want to connect like never before. The pieces of the improv puzzle are coming together. We still have work to do, there are still some bumps in the road but we have the passion, the numbers and the strength!

I’ll leave you with this. And this is what I say to my campers at the end of camp. Take what you’ve learned and go back to your communities. Help them grow. Share with everyone you can, help anyone you can and work together.

Nick Armstrong

Nick is Camp Director and Founder of Improv Utopia an improv retreat for adults in California and Pennsylvania. He is also one of the founding members of the National Improv Network and performer at iO West as well as member of The Sunday Company at The Groundlings. He has also taught improv workshops around the country.

Announcement: The NIN Sister Festival Project Launches

The National Improv Network (NIN) is launching a project that puts improv festivals together to help them grow, share and become known nationally.

How does it work?

Preferably a festival from one side of the country pairs with a festival from the other side of the country. For instance our first pairing is The Phoenix Improv Festival and The Detroit Improv Festival. The great thing about this pairing is they are on opposite sides of the country and their festivals fall at different parts of the year. Heck if you know festivals in other countries you should do that too. We have some listed on NIN.

Why?

Our goal is to get festivals together so they can help each other cross promote, help each other out and share information. What works at a fest, what doesn’t etc. Also, it’s likely The Detroit Improv Festival doesn’t have the same contacts and submissions as the Phoenix Improv Festival so during the off season of PIF they will help DIF promote their submissions and vice-versa.

So what do you do next?

Go to the Festival page on NIN and look up a festival you may want  to parnter with. We will be sending an e-mail to our festival members with this blog too so they know what’s going on. If you feel more comfortable having us introduce you to a festival please e-mail me at nick@nationalimprovnetwork.com. I’d be happy to get you in touch.

If you’ve partnered with a festival let us know! We will promote it on our site and spread the word as well. So join the movement and help our community grow even more. Yes and!

Nick Armstrong

Nick is Camp Director and Founder of Improv Utopia an improv retreat for adults in California and Pennsylvania. He is also one of the founding members of the National Improv Network and performer and teacher at iO West as well as member of The Sunday Company at The Groundlings. He has also taught many workshops around the country.

 

Performing and Coaching Improv Online – The Pros and Cons

Last Tuesday I was asked to be a part of a google hangout  improv show for a website called e-improv. e-improv is a website that streams live improv shows via Google Hangout. The show I was in was called Let’s Get Serious Guys! Hosted by the lovely Juliette Everhart from the Kansas City Improv Community and The Recess Players. We were also joined by Founder and Artistic Director and old student/friend of mine Dylan Rhode from Backline Improv Theater and The Omaha Improv Festival in Nebraska. Like anything in improv I always like to do new things and I saw this as an opportunity to give it a try. I’ve also coached online improv with a Kansas City group that Juliette is on and I’ll go into detail about that experience as well.

The Show: e-improv

For the show on Tuesday, I was exciting and nervous all at the same time. Playing with people you haven’t played with, but also it’s online! Will I be able to hear them? Will I miss some moments? How will it go? The first part of Juliette’s show was an interview session which she asks Dylan and I to come up with a theme in improv that we enjoy…

For Dylan and I it was easy, “Community” since we are both in the building community game we felt compelled to talk about it. Then after that we go into an improv jam for 10 minutes. We get a suggestion from a book and then here we go. I will say this, I had a fun time…Was the improv great? Not the best, I’m sure all three of us would agree, but still a fun time.

Technology still needs to catch up I think. Sometimes the delays in technology slowed the timing down and it was hard to hear. Talking over each other is nearly impossible to do online because of the way it is set up…Maybe that’s a good thing! 🙂

My overall view of it is that online improv will never replace a brick and mortar establishment, but what I do love about online improv is the fact that you can do it with anyone in the world at anytime and that is the best takeaway from this experience. What a way to build a worldwide improv community. I don’t think the founders of the site, which I intend to do a follow up blog with and interview with them, are intending to do.

When you spend so much time in front of a screen that it causes a tired, strained feeling in your eyes, you may be suffering from a condition known as computer vision syndrome. This problem is so common that is it said to affect somewhere between 64 and 90 per cent of office workers.

I think they are trying to just build community and you know what…I’m on board with that. It never hurts to do something that brings improvisors together. Hey if you have fun and it makes you laugh, then follow that.

PROS – Meeting and playing with people from all over the improv community that you would never get the opportunity to play with.

CONS – Technology makes improv connections hard and there is limitation in physicality. You are pretty much doing talking head scenes.

Coaching Online:

I was really hesitant to do this. Call me old school. I coached a team in Kansas City, MO. So in the spirit of yes, and… I did it and I don’t regret it. Yes, you are limited in what you can do as a coach.

It’s hard to get physical or get up there with them to demonstrate and there are certain exercises you can’t do. But I coached them for almost a year, off and on, and I saw an improvement in them and they felt an improvement in their play. My motto is this, if they feel they’re getting something out of it and I see improvement then it’s worth doing.

PROS – Getting coaches from around the country to teach you their style and philosophies along with some of their exercises. Coaching online can help improvisors grow.

CONS: Limited in what you can do with teams and technology can some time crap out on you. Also, it can be hard to hear or see things depending on visibility of the camera and mic set up.

 

Nick Armstrong

Nick is Camp Director and Founder of Improv Utopia an improv retreat for adults in California and Pennsylvania. He is also one of the founding members of the National Improv Network and performer and teacher at iO West as well as member of The Sunday Company at The Groundlings. He has also taught many workshops around the country.

Theater Spotlight: Westside Comedy Theater

I was able to interview Artistic Director of The Westside Comedy Theater Sean Casey. What grabbed my attention from them is there 110 percent support of their improvisors. A few weeks ago they encouraged their house teams to go to festivals across the country and guess what? They would foot the bill for submission fees! It’s all about support and that’s what I’ve witnessed at Westside Comedy!

What’s the history of Westside?

It’s hard to talk about the history of the Westside without bringing up the history of Mission IMPROVable, because really the Westside’s the brick and mortar home for MI. We’ve ass-ended into a pretty amazing standup scene and have been open to all the new voices in sketch, storytelling, web video screenings, etc., so I don’t want to take anything away from that. But at the end of the day there was a theater that did mostly comedy in Santa Monica, and Mission IMPROVable bought it to create M.I.’s Westside Comedy Theater.

Backing up a bit, back in the 90s, when Chumbawumba was KING, a group of friends were doing improv at UMass Amherst in a group called Mission IMPROVable. It’s still there, although what the student group is and what we are is different now, and I imagine if anyone had it all to do over again, we’d all agree to pick a name that was much bigger pun. The group moved to Chicago (I was not part of this first wave, so I call these the ‘Dark Years’) and did what many of us do – go batshit crazy taking as many classes and doing as many improv shows as you can. The difference was they understood there was a business underneath there somewhere. They created a delightful high energy short form show and tried it out on the college market. The crew was tight and this was right when Whose Line had juuuuuust become popular, so it caught on. After a year of touring, they brought in some real talent like myself and a few others, which was smart. Not because I’m a huge dick and think the show only got funny when I came on. That’s just not true. But they got comfortable, early on, letting other people share the light of their campfire. I think this is important and why the group continues to flourish. I had no part in setting that original tone, but I echo that sentiment as much as I can in running the Westside. I should also drop a shout out to Liz Allen, our coach, and amazing human being.

We toured cross country, traveling to gigs by van – 6 people packed in with stretches of 10+ hours between gigs. Nothing. NO THING will forge you closer together than tiny confines and the endless fields of America. Road Trip times forever. Spending that much time together, there’s no ability to not be yourself. You want group mind? Try smelling farts and correctly guessing what that person ate for breakfast. Or not guessing because everyone was at breakfast together. That show continues. The latest cast is excellent, BTW. As much as we can, we will always source our best people from the cast of the Mission IMPROVable show because anybody who survives on the road and finds peace, comedy and themselves through that is pure gold forever and ever.

So, what happens after tour ends for you? I think the record is 3 and a half years on the road before burning out. It’s not that the colleges change, or the bars, or CiCi’s Pizza; at some point you’ve learned all you’re going to learn from that show and the endless variations of crowds and venues and you’re good. So, in ones and twos we decided to move to LA. We had a sketch pilot going forward over at MTV and wanted to be someplace, uh, without 6 months of Winter. It was a slow transition – people, as individuals, had to make that choice. I think it took about a year and a half for everyone to sort of decide if they were in or out. Meanwhile, a whole new touring group came together in Chicago. We were officially bi-coastal, if you count Lake Michigan as a coast, which I do, thank you Great Lakes Avengers.

In LA we were all over the map – some guys were teaching and performing improv at places like IO & the newly minted UCB, some were writing. I was temping at HBO and then working for a coke head scalping tickets. It was a confusing time. Mtv eventually passed on our show (they went with Human Giant, which, in retrospect, was a pretty solid choice) and we were trying to figure out what it was we did and what our future would be. This whole time, our touring company based in Chicago is continuing to do great. We decide to come back together in a major way and focus in on a sketch show, like let’s rehearse this thing for 4 months, like really get into it. We do this. It consumes everyone involved and it goes great. All the performances are sold out and agent/manager types are super cool to us.

3 weeks later, protesting unfair contract negotiations, the WGA declares a strike and everything, I mean everything, in Hollywood shuts down. If you weren’t here for this time and you’ve since moved to LA and were like ‘It’s hard in this town,’ Fuck You, you have no idea. Every shoot, every project in the pipeline, got dumped. Wiped clean like a Biblical flood. Our whole idea at this time had been, “Well, we made this touring show. I bet some company somewhere wants to work with us and build us up as some fun, dopey improv comedy darlings.” Every company was put on ice by the strike. Any momentum we had built up with our sketch show crushing it was gone. Finito.

And then came the Internet, right? Remember when streaming video happened and saved the day for everyone? It did, kind of. With everything Hollywood essentially frozen, all these little projects started happening. You’re getting by with your waiter job or whatever and then there are these shows like Dr Horrible and The Guild and you’re like, “Oh, right, we can make this stuff, too.” And that’s when the seeds of realizing it will always be us and we shouldn’t rely on anybody else ‘discovering’ us and plucking us out of (relative) obscurity take root. DIY and all that. But I think it’s worth appreciating that up through that point, one does feel like that might be possible, that you’ll somehow be at a party and someone will want to read your shitty screenplay and they turn out to be Jeffrey Katzenberg’s cousin or something. Because it happened to somebody once. And that somebody could be YOU. And that is total and complete horse pucky because you spend all your time mucking around with people and not actually making or doing the stuff you’re meant to do.

SO, out of that we decide to start making more stuff in various ways. Some of that stuff eventually becomes Epic Rap Battles Of History and if you’re Pete & Lloyd that turned out super, super well. Honestly, that show started out as a live rap-themed short form improv show and now they just got back from a meeting with President Obama, again. No, fuck you, I said again. Ridiculous.

But to get back to the theater, we absolutely, categorically decide at our annual company weekend retreat that we do not want to own a theater. We want to make a movie. An improvised movie, I think. 2 months later, another shocker happens – the Financial Meltdown or The Great Depression 2 or whatever we’ve ultimately decided to call this time. So, to be clear, all of Hollywood shuts down (Writers Strike) followed pretty closely with all of everything shutting down. It’s at this specific point in time, when people are fairly convinced America’s greatness is behind her and that our entire country is going down the tubes, that we decide to purchase an Improv Comedy Theater.

And it looked weird. The interior was all day-glo colors, all oranges and greens and purples. It was in an alley. It was in Santa Monica, which if you’re from LA you know is about as far away as anybody gets from where all the young comedy people live and still be in the county. There was really no stage. It was a converted warehouse, you could spot the freight lifts tucked in a dark corner. But it was right at the Third Street Promenade, which is a draw, and close to the ocean. People like to live by the ocean. We were able to snag a killer location at a price we could afford in a population dense area that didn’t have any other established competition. But up through that point, nobody doing comedy seriously took the old place seriously. Sound bounced around in the rafters. All the hip shows in town were 15 miles due East. In short, there was plenty of potential, but it was not an assured thing.

The first 2 years of the Westside are all Lloyd Ahlquist & Colin Sweeney. Lloyd ran the theater & Colin ran the Training Center. They were lean years, but it turned out to be cool, as it was tough going for everyone doing anything at that time. I think Colin actually lived in the theater for a bit, like phantom of the opera. After shows were over, he’d curl up in a sleeping bag up in the loft. The rest of us were active, painting and improving the space, doing shows, and we inherited a handful of good shows and good people who were down to make something new. But to be fair, anything new is bound to attract weirdoes and the desperate. Luckily, thanks to hard times, desperation was the order of the day, and struggling had its own dirty nobility. We knew we had one solid show in Mission IMPROVable, a workhorse that had succeeded on stages across the country. We could lean our backs up against that show, knowing it to be solid entertainment that worked live.

The goal was to get a bar in place, to completely revamp the space, and to attract build up our lineup. It required taking on significant levels of debt. It required placing our individual assets against the loan. If it had gone bad, at the very least, all of our credit would have been ruined. You can look at here now for more information. You can also apply for an instant cash loans, just like other types of loans, can vary depending on the lender, your current income level, and your credit history. Well, you can find out more at their official website.

Right as this was taking shape, Lloyd blew up as a Youtube star w/ ERB and Colin headed out to pursue some opportunities which didn’t involve sleeping at the workplace. They had both done heroic work. Like a real dope, I looked at the impending construction, the daunting repayment schedule, and thought, “I’d love a piece of THAT.” I stepped in to run the Westside a few weeks before we entered into 3 months of construction, during which I had to keep the place open or risk being unable to make rent. It was nerve wracking, but I was never, ever bored.

Happily, I had a great team in a few longtime friends from the road. Chris Gorbos oversaw the construction of the bar (and really all the construction) which minted him as our new Bar Manager. He came to the job with a strong intellect and a deep appreciation for drinking. Bryce Wissel was unconvinced he had the gravitas to run the Training Center, but I’ve never met someone who so sincerely embodies that voice you need to hear as you’re coming up through classes. He’s supportive, yet honest. And we got through it. Every day construction crews would do things like dig 2 foot trenches across the entirety of the theater’s flooring and every night we’d drop boards over the gaping holes in the ground, sweep up as much dust as we could, and set out chairs (no longer day glo) for crowds who, inexplicably, continued to come. I had just taken the job. I had no idea how to run a theater or a comedy club. I knew a decent number of folks in the comedy scene of LA, but I don’t think I was That Guy. I had a bunch of opinions based on the past 2 years and all the places I’d been to before, but no real experience. I was given the trust of my friends and partners and it changed me profoundly.

At the end of the Summer 2011, we finished construction and launched the newly renovated space. It was meant to reflect as much of the places we most enjoyed performing at as possible – wide, rather than deep, with a bar in the room for casual service during shows, with a barely raised stage that kept the performers close to their audience. It really worked. Pound for pound, it’s the best example of a converted performance venue I can think of. Yeah, it’s not The Gorge or Red Rocks, but as a live comedy venue, I love it. And for the past three years we’ve spent all our time reaching out to talent throughout the city and continuing to invest in our homegrown people, who are all straight ballers. There’s a lot you get with a nicer space in terms of people wanting to perform and hang out there, but those first 2 years, I think, proved that we were invested in our space and that we weren’t going anywhere. We were going to stay and grow. That’s who we are – the guys who are just as stressed/excited about their show this Thursday as you are about yours. It’s like a player-owned team. We’re all in it together.

I think that about takes us to now. I’m glossing over a bunch. In the interim, we’ve brought up some truly killer shows featuring many of the best names in comedy. Our staff’s grown to include the peerless Mike Betette and local-boy-made-good Byron Kennerly. The theater employs 5 people full-time plus about 30 part timers, teachers, bartenders, etc. We actively court Industry to come out to shows and scout talent, which works out great considering the expensive side of town is actually where these guys live and work. I’m acutely aware of how competitive our area (LA) is in terms of places where people could study and perform. I think people genuinely want a place where they can be seen, be heard, matter and grow. The Westside’s built to provide that. As we grow, we’ll keep providing that because each person we build up is able to pass along that ethic. The people who have been with us since the beginning I would give my non-writing arm for. Really I’d do that for anybody at the Westside, although I’d do it for them, possibly, a little quicker. Closing up, here’s the pitch; LA doesn’t have to be some shitty place with plastic people. It’s gorgeous outside and full of hidden places you have to seek out to find. We are one of those spots and when you find us, we’ll be happy you made it.

What is your theaters philosophy?

‘We’re all in this together’ – The people who own & run the Westside are comedians, who know your challenges and what you’d like a live comedy spot to be. That place between work & home for most of us is Comedy, unless Comedy is also your work. Then you’re screwed. Now we’re the only place that will have you.

You guys are known for going above and beyond for your support of your performers. Not only by giving them stage time and training, but you also support them financially by paying their submission fees to festivals. How did this come about? And why did you do it?

Thanks! I think if you’re running a live theater of any stripe, you realize quickly it’s not meant to be a money-printing operation. Just the simple act of continuing to exist is the miracle. So any success above and beyond that should be pointed back to the Community that makes your lil’ world even possible. We do a yearly retreat weekend where we try to get some distance from the everyday grind of running the theater and tour, and the idea bubbled up there a few weeks ago. We were actually sitting around trying to think of nice things to do. And then we cooked dinner for each other and watched The Normal Heart, LIKE THE TIGHT BROS WE ARE. The submission fee thing was meant to encourage our teams to Go Forth out into the world and meet their fellow improvisor. Plus, we used to do a ton of festivals and they are 100% fun. Especially if you’re like me and you’re basically monogamous with your home stage. Get out, see how the other half lives, right?

I think it came up right after we were trying to figure out how far we could push doing charity shows and linking up with community outreach before people coming to a comedy show had our politics forced on them. That’s one of the places we are right now – I think we were able to attract some truly compassionate, engaged (and talented) people at the theater, and if you get enough of them together you start thinking, “Maybe I should stop pressing Like buttons on FB and maybe DO something with actual real life people in reality.” Ha, I am officially off topic, but if you know me, this is pretty par for the course.

What is your advice to a theater starting out?

Really, honestly – improvvy stuff works in this real world application. If you’re into the whole Live-Your-Life-By-Improv-Rules, you’ll be happy about how this turns out. You all know them, so I won’t belabor the point. On a nuts-and-bolts level, don’t rely on any one area for all your revenue. We’re a 3 legged stool – Classes, Box Office & Bar, with some corporate & rentals to mix it up. If any one of those is threatened, we can still keep going. And I’m not talking about your theater actually getting shut down by the Fire Inspector, or the badass Guru teacher you have actually splitting out and starting her/his own thing. I’m talking mostly about when one of those things threatens to happen, you won’t burn up inside with stress and get so worked up you forget to fix the problems you really have or forget to build on successes. Also, don’t confuse the place you want with the place you have. Finally, debt is a muthafukka. If you’re like me, it’s a chain you wear heavily until you can finally take it off. Money comes with strings attached. Always. You don’t need carpets or a fancy light rig or a big splashy launch. You need talented performers and the ability to stay open. Keep your overhead low. Okay, I’ll keep going – Trust in as many people as you can and pass along a sense of ownership and responsibility to them. Give people a chance to surprise you (in a good way) over and over again. At the very least, you’ll never forget the stories of when everything went sideways. Our webmaster recently decided to create a character and stay in it…all the time. As an exercise, we’re hoping. Is he less effective at his job? No. Would he be fired from someplace else for trying this? Likely. Do I think this Andy Kaufman thing is the next bright light in Comedy? Debatable. But it’ll get him to something else, someplace he wouldn’t have gotten to if you told him to knock it off. I like that. I like having a place that allows for that to happen. If you call the Westside and talk to ‘Franklin’ you’ll get it.

We at NIN hold to the philosophy that working together as a grand community can only make us stronger. I know WCT holds that same philosophy explain why it’s important to you.

Well, apart from not wanting to feel like you’re a mutant alone in your masochistic desire to perform onstage without a script, set, props or anything else that generally makes a show successful, I think we’re propelled to see where the future of Improv, capital ‘I’, is going. I’d like to think it’ll be from a show in LA (at the Westside 🙂 or Chicago or NYC, but I really, truly hope it’ll come from someplace like St Louis, Phoenix or Richmond. Or Grozny. We all have the same set of tools, and I like to think exposure to master performers & coaches ups your game that much faster, but whatever the next level of Improv is has yet to establish itself. Is it a product or is it a process? Is its accessibility what’s holding it back or does that ‘Minute To Learn, Lifetime To Master’ aspect allow it to seep into every town in all the world? I go back and forth on these questions. I know I’m not the only one thinking about them and they make lousy party conversation. That’s why we need NIN and festivals, so there’s a real place and we don’t bother our friends at parties with this stuff.

Nick Armstrong

Nick is Camp Director and Founder of Improv Utopia an improv retreat for adults in California and Pennsylvania. He is also one of the founding members of the National Improv Network and performer and teacher at iO West as well as member of The Sunday Company at The Groundlings. He has also taught many workshops around the country.

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

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NIN with Producer Jeanette Knight

There’s a famous poem by Robert Frost that I do not have permission to post in its entirety here. In it, the narrator stops his horse on a snowy night far from the city at a small farmhouse in the deep of the night. Even his horse is confused at this seemingly non-final destination, but the narrator understands what the horse does not; that there is still a great journey ahead, but the journey itself and those points along it should be cherished as much as the destination.

I think of that poem frequently since my visit to the Coachella Valley Improv/Comedy Festival, a freshman event that in some structural ways was very different than what many of us recognize as an improv festival. After-parties were replaced with dinner banquets. Energy drink sponsors were replaced by city council members. The audiences had a solid generation lead on the audiences elsewhere. Those surface level differences were immediately noticeable. But just as noticeable was the far deeper similarity; a true love of the art. It was visible on the faces of every staff member, every volunteer. They loved what improv was and could be.

And the audience loved every moment of it. This audience, many in their 60s or beyond, had possibly never seen this thing we’ve fallen in love with. And now they’re in love too. Such a joy of discovery was evident in the audience as they poured out after the last performances of the evening. I recognized that look of a new found love that I’ve seen in so many level 1 students over the years.

There’s an old, bad notion that only shortform should be shown to an “unsophisticated” or “untried” audience; that longform is never going to win over an improv Muggle. There’s an old, bad notion that to do challenging artistic work (in shortform or longform) you have to find the hip, elite, Avant-garde audience – probably in a major city. I personally challenge anyone who passes on these ideas to run those theories by any audience member walking out of the Indio Performing Arts Center that night. These people were not treated with kid gloves. Fancy Football hit some dark honest relationships, DAAAANG Judi Dench and Mister Town City both weaved complex narratives around each other in tremendously satisfying ways. White Women hit every single scene hard and unflinching. Every show that night rang with the truest sense of Truth in Comedy. They honored the oft quoted words of Del and treated their audience like poets. And the audience reacted in kind.

The residents of Indio, California are not elite or underground. They enjoy good art. The residents of Juneau, Alaska are the farthest thing in the world from Avant-garde, but Rorschach Pattern 9 constantly and consistently challenges them artistically. And they come. Chicago and San Francisco gave a wonderful gift to the world many decades ago; a gift I am thankful for every day. But now that gift belongs to all of us. And that gift needs to continue to be shared in every place.

Improv doesn’t need to be the exclusive privilege of the metropolis. Festivals shouldn’t be the domain of cities with NFL franchises. Any town I visit that tells me it’s too small to support an improv scene, I will point to Indio. Any town that says its audiences wouldn’t get improv, I will point to Indio. Improv is everywhere. The love of improv is everywhere. The state of improv in the world – just like in that poem – is lovely, dark and deep. But we have promises to keep and miles to go before we sleep.


Currently Bill is an instructor at The Torch Theatre and producer for the Phoenix Improv Festival. He tours teaching and performing across North America.

The Hideout’s International Experiment

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If you’ve ever visited Austin as an improvisor, you’ve probably visited The Hideout Theatre. It’s been one of the mainstays of the Austin scene for many years. And although great shows have gone up consistently for all those years a lot has changed recently. There’s been a much larger reach from the theatre to get involved not only with the other theatres in Austin, but theatres and festivals around the world. This is not coincidental to the fact that the four members of Parallelogramophonograph have taken a more active role in the theatre. Of all the groups in the world, PGraph is one of the leaders – in my opinion – in not only innovation within their shows, but in their openness and excitement to share ideas with folks everywhere and anywhere. Although the group, and many others from The Hideout have traveled the world, they’re starting on a new journey to bring a little of the world to Austin. I was lucky enough to get a few thoughts from Roy Janik about the project and about how you, reading this article right now, can get involved.

The International Improv Experience is a very ambitious idea, but also one that is very accessible for people around the world. A lot of our readers aren’t familiar with the project. How does it work and how did the idea come about?

In the past few years, Parallelogramophonograph (PGraph, my 4 person improv group) has been lucky enough to do a lot of international traveling- to Montreal, to Vancouver, to London, to Paris, and to Australia. These trips are always bittersweet, because we make these amazing friends that we may not see again for years to come. But the trips are also amazing because you start to get a sense for just how universal improv’s growth is, and how much we all share in common with each other.

When I was planning the 2014 Hideout season, I wanted to do something that would enable me to work with all these lovely people again, and to give Austinites a small taste of what we’d found when traveling. The name “The International Improv Experience” sprang to my mind unbidden, and I slotted it in without really knowing the details. So it’s a show based on a mission statement, not a format.

We’ve tinkered with video collaboration in the past. PGraph has a sci-fi show called Eris 2035. In that, we send an open call to improvisers around the world to record “video letters” to loved ones in space, which we then incorporate into the show. So we knew that that idea worked on a small scale, at least.

The way the International Improv Experience works is this: Participating groups issue video challenges, which they send to me online ahead of time. During the show we select a country at random, play one of their videos, and then do whatever they’ve challenged us to do. After the intermission, we do a longer narrative inspired by a particular country’s storytelling tradition (explained in another video).

To make things more focused, I’ve outlined general types of challenges for groups to submit- scene challenges, guided tours, challenges related to landmarks, animals, language lessons, and so on. You can see the example page here: http://hideouttheatre.com/international-improv-experience-welcome

The Hideout has definitely been part of the international community for a while now. How has that collaboration with theatres around the world help grow The Hideout and the Austin Community?

It’s been accelerating lately, and you can see it in small ways. The most obvious way is that we get a lot more international visitors. Tim Redmond from Australia and Jonathan Monkhouse from London have both come over to be a part of our 40+ hour improv marathon. Scott Hunter just visited from Vancouver. Jules and Heather of 10,000 Million Love Stories in the UK came for The Improvised Play Festival and taught workshops. And we’ve got several more visits planned before the end of 2014.

Another HUGE way that traveling and being a part of the international community has helped has been in the direct exchange of ideas. The Fancy-Pants Mashup, one of our more popular ongoing shows, is based on a show we participated in when visiting ProjectProject in Toronto several years ago. An energetic warmup we picked up in London a month ago is now being taught to the kids in our summer camps.

Every single time we travel or reach out to a theater outside of Texas, we make friends and we learn something.

The project is obviously a lot of fun for people sending in videos. What are you hoping your audiences will take away from the project?

I want audiences to leave with a sense that by coming to our theater, they’ve tapped into something greater than just a pleasant night’s diversion. It’s something every improviser knows, but it’s hard to convey that, or to make the audience care about that. But with these videos, audience members can see for themselves just how charming, diverse, and widespread the international community is.

This isn’t the first large scale project from some of the folks creating this. As more young theatres are beginning to find their identity, what advice would you give them for trying more bold projects of their own?

The most important piece of advice I can give is to ignore the well-meaning naysayers- those people that are on your side but have a billion reasons why you shouldn’t do that dramatic/narrative/genre/weekly/experimental/cross-theater/international (take your pick) show. You know the excuses: Your city’s audiences aren’t sophisticated enough, your regular fans are expecting comedy, plot is too hard, you need to build up your own audience before reaching out to other groups, you’ll burn out, we tried that 3 years ago and it didn’t work, etc, etc… ESPECIALLY ignore that naysayer if he lives in your own head.

It’s funny. We’re trained in improv to face our fear, but fear keeps creeping in. If it can’t get a foothold in the improv itself, it’ll creep into the admin side of things. At the Hideout, I hesitated adding more shows to our schedule because I was afraid doing that would dilute our audience. But every time I do, it’s been totally fine.

On the more practical side, here’s a quick list of pointers we’ve found useful for launching larger/more ambitious projects:

  1. Do what you’re inspired to do. If no one is jazzed about an idea, even if it’s been successful before, table it.
  2. Make sure your concept has a hook you can explain on a poster that makes sense to someone who knows nothing about improv.
  3. Don’t overcomplicate the format of your show. Even if you’re doing a sprawling Dickensian epic, aim for hitting the appropriate tone and characters rather than the specific chronological beats of a story.
  4. Be willing to change everything. Once rehearsal starts the show will reveal itself, and you need to be willing to let go of your initial, perfect concept.
  5. Set the audience’s expectations as early as possible, especially if the show you’re doing is unusual for your group. If you’re doing a tragedy, don’t promise a hilarious night of laughs on your poster. Tailor your hosting to fit the tone and style of the show as well. With a lot of shows I direct, I will straight up tell the audience “The show you’re about to see is unlike anything The Hideout has done before, and here’s why.”

Of course we couldn’t have an article about a video project without a video. Here’s the project.

Kudos to Roy and all of the Hideout staff and performers for not only putting together such a large project, but reaching out to share with the rest of the improv community.

If your theatre would like to get involved, create your own videos or if you’re in Austin, head on down and catch the shows live.


Currently Bill is an instructor at The Torch Theatre and producer for the Phoenix Improv Festival. He tours teaching and performing across North America.

Competition Or Collaboration?

You’ve started and improv group, your improv group has grown. You’re getting an audience, selling out the pizza parlor you’ve been performing at. It’s time to grow, so you get your own space and your own improv company. But what’s this, another group has done the same thing as you and have opened an improv theater in the same City…”NOOOOOOO! But there going to take my business!” “All the improvisors will perform and train there not here, all the audience will go see them, not us.”

As an owner and/or performer you’ve probably witnessed or have been a part of the above scenario. It happens in most cities. The new kid on the block comes in with their new theater and improv philosophy and you see it as a threat or don’t agree with their style.

It is my philosophy that improv cannot work in competition it has to work together…

How Corporations Work:

Corporate America is a results based system. Meaning they will do anything they can to get a bottom line and make more money for their investors and their executives. It’s a shitty system. We all have seen it single handily destroy the America we once knew. Causing a huge rift between the class system. Corporations hand out pink slips and buy the competition or try and put them out of business. They most likely never work together. It’s a cut throat world and everything needs to be cheaper and make sure their labor costs are down. I’ve been in this world. I’ve seen in first hand.

How Improv Works:

Improv is an ensemble based system. Where a group of friends or strangers get together and collaborate and try to achieve a group mind. They encourage a yes and philosophy and bounce off the last thing said. Add information and heighten their fellow ensemble members idea. The growth is collaborative.

Now…How Improv Cannot be a Corporation.

Improv is not a corporation and it shouldn’t be treated as one. Improv business should be treated the same way as the philosophies of improv. You can’t have one or the other. Improv is a community that wants a home or many homes. Improvisors want to seek many philosophies and want to expand their artistic repertoire. Embrace this. Run your business like an improv ensemble. Accept the new improv theater that just opened down the street. Welcome them with open arms and give them advice if they ask for it. Remember the old days when someone moved into your neighborhood you brought them a pie. You don’t have to go that far, but brownies might be nice. 😉 Share information. Let them know the permit process might be hard and here’s an easier way to do it etc.  Don’t isolate them, you don’t have to believe in their philosophy over yours but you do have to accept them. Work together. Use your powers to raise awareness to the masses of improv.

Here’s an exercise: Count how many improv theater seats in your town, let’s say 500 and now see how many people you have in your city, say 200,000. There is no competition. You can easily work together to tap the potential audience market by raising awareness. All 500 seats will be filled every weekend.

Internally, run your business like an improv ensemble. Get feedback from your audience, your performers and your partners. This will only help you grow and become better. Bounce ideas off each other, add information and heighten. Listen, listen, listen. Throw your ego out the door.

The Improv Community:

I’ve traveled the country and have seen many different improv communities and have heard their stories of competition and not getting along, and I have had many improvisors and improv businesses come through Camp Improv Utopia and I have heard these stories too. I know this community. We are a community that wants to grow. Improvisors aren’t going to just train at one theater, they want to try as many as they can. And they should. You should embrace that. Not embracing that will ultimately scare them away from your community or close your theater off and put you on an island. Trust your community, listen, share  and grow together. That’s what an improvisor wants, that’s an improv community. That’s what makes us different then every group in the world.

Don’t let your business be guided by competition, let your business be guided by collaboration.


Nick is Camp Director and Founder of Improv Utopia an improv retreat for adults in California and Pennsylvania. He is also one of the founding members of the National Improv Network and performer and teacher at iO West as well as member of The Sunday Company at The Groundlings. He has also taught many workshops around the country.

Improv Utopia Returns in Style

improvutopia[1]It’s hard to believe I’ve been making the drive to Cambria, California four years in a row now. It’s become an annual tradition for performers from around the world to come together in the tiny California town in Camp Ocean Pines. A lot of people ask me the same question; “Is it really a camp?” It’s a fair question, I suppose. There are plenty of camps these days (computer camp, space camp, etc) that take place in some Community Center, but Camp Improv Utopia is certainly the camp experience we all remember from years gone by; trees, archery, walking up the hill to the cabins; it’s about as authentic as you can get.

But it’s not the axe throwing that makes camp a special experience, it’s the fact that when improvisors are removed from distraction they accomplish things that we try to achieve in our improv all the rest of the year. Many festivals have weekends filled with great events, shows, workshops and the like. But there’s always that downtime where people explore the city, break off with their respective troupes. There’s no such thing at camp. Many performers aren’t even their with their respective groups from home, because camp becomes a single ensemble for the weekend.

Every time people talk about what life would be like if we could quit our day jobs and do improv full time, this is what we get for three days. There’s an energy not only in the workshops, but the opportunity to create your own activities. During the hours in the afternoon between classes, a quick walk through the woods can find some spontaneous jams, Brian O’Connell doing some one-on-one coaching, practicing for cabin shows, or taking pictures for the excellent Improvisors Project. It’s aptly named Utopia – or what improvisors would imagine utopia to be; a place with no offices or restaurants (or wi-fi really). Just a place to sleep, a place to eat and acres to study your craft.

The workshops themselves were excellent, Paul Vaillancourt, Karen Graci, Jaime Moyer, Josh DuBose and Amanda Blake Davis were all at their best with their three hour workshops. It’s funny that even though campfires went late into the night, people arrived energized at the first workshop each day.

The evenings were also filled with more communal activities including an instructor show, an open panel discussion on the state of improv, Jam City and the much talked about cabin shows. Each cabin (named for an artist or scientist of note) came together as a new ensemble to perform. Many cabins took inspiration from their cabin’s namesake including The Cousteu cabin’s red knit hats worn throughout the weekend. In it’s fourth year, the cabins themselves have taken on a life to themselves, which includes the new campers who stay in them each year. It’s exciting to see.

The campfires, the excitement for the cabin shows, the jams, the workshops and just the access to performers at all levels who were happy to sit on a log and talk improv with any level 1 student. It was the truest expression of “Yes, and”, an environment that nurtures the growth of the performers. All in all, a truly reinvigorating improv experience.

Cover Photo courtesy ImprovUtopia


Currently Bill is an instructor at The Torch Theatre and producer for the Phoenix Improv Festival. He tours teaching and performing across North America.

Spotlight On: Pittsburgh Comedy Festival

thumbnail_1381618617-300x300[1]Pittsburgh is launching their first festival later this year, but they’ve been planning it for a long time. I first met the producers at The Detroit Improv Festival and the were anxious to learn as much as they could. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a freshman festival so hungry for info on how to put on the best festival possible. As a producer of a festival myself, I’ve spoken to Brian Gray many times, and I had the opportunity to chat with him about his hopes for the upcoming festival.

Pittsburgh is doing their first festival this year, but the improv scene has been around for a while. What was the spark that led to the decision to put on a festival?

The idea for a festival has been gestating for a long time. Years ago, I talked to some of the comedy leaders in town about doing a local/regional festival but it never caught on. Since then, three institutions (including two brick-and-mortar theaters) have opened in Pittsburgh dedicated to teaching and performing comedy. There’s a lot more momentum and a lot more local talent. We’ve had members of the Second City touring company drop by for a jam after their show and tell us how amazed they are at what we have hidden away here. Yet the average Pittsburgher and many in the national comedy community have no idea.

Last summer, two area stand-ups (who also do improv) asked for my help bringing improv into a festival that they were planning, and the Pittsburgh Comedy Festival was born.

Indelible Photography

Indelible Photography

Many performers will be visiting Pittsburgh to perform for the first time. This is a real chance to show them what Pittsburgh Comedy is all about. What is the Pittsburgh improv scene? What do you love about the improv in this city that you don’t find anywhere else?

Improv has been alive in Pittsburgh for thirty years but only within the past three has there really been consistent teaching and a growing community. This meant students becoming indie teams becoming house teams with weekly performances and so forth. We have teachers here who’ve trained and lived in New York, Chicago, LA and some who came up the ranks in Pittsburgh and are an amalgam of these styles. As a new scene, we have yet to develop a unified voice (not sure we ever will), but here are some observations I’ll make:

  • Accessibility: Pittsburgh audiences are not used to seeing live comedy. If you come out and do your “Reverse Harold”, people won’t know what to make of it. We are still trying to define improv for many people in town and having small successes putting up high-quality improv that has an easily understandable structure (e.g. an improvised musical).
     
  • Experimentation: Pittsburgh has a lot of performance opportunities compared to the small community of artists, which opens doors for experimentation. New groups, duos and one off shows can get a shot here. One incubator of experimentation has been a show in its third year at the Steel City Improv Theater called BYOT (Bring Your Own Team). At BYOT, improvisers write an idea on a hat and are given 5-7 minutes to try it out. These can be anything including groups, duos, sketches, “games”, late night monologue jokes, etc.
     
  • Variety: It’s not just about the improv scene! Pittsburgh is great at allowing improvisation to feed stand-up and vice-versa. Arcade Comedy Theater books improv and stand-up, as well as sketch, comedy music, even magic! They also offer classes in many of those forms. After 10+ years of improv, I just took my first stand-up class and have been telling all my improv peers to follow suit. The class was about discovering your voice, being yourself onstage and learning what is funny to you–all relevant to my improv. This belief that studying different modes of comedy will improve ourselves as comedians is fundamental here.

I know the producers have spent over a year traveling to different festivals and talking to festival producers around the country. What have you learned? What have you seen that you want to do? And what have you seen that you think you can make even better?


We’ve learned so much!

This is our first year, so we are taking an agile approach of trying some ideas and being open to some failure and learning from our mistakes. We won’t pretend like we will do this better than those who’ve been in the game 5 or 10 years.

We have responded to some festivals better than others, and we want this specifically to succeed in Pittsburgh. Our goal for PCF 2014 is to create a small successful festival where performers feel re-energized and audiences are pumped to see more live comedy in the weeks and months to come at our existing comedy venues.

To that end, we are focusing on one venue with mostly evening performances (save our family programming). We want it to be something special to be involved in PCF. And rather than have to find the “good shows”, we want performers (and largely comedy novice audiences) to know that they can drop into any performance and have a great time! We’ve been to large sprawling festivals and smaller intimate festivals and we feel the latter will be a successful model for us this year.

We also really want a focus on the performer community at PCF. Some festivals go out of their way to make you feel like you were taken care of and you just get filled with warm fuzzies thinking back on your experience–that’s what we want to create. And because so few of us are a big deal on the festival circuit, we are looking out for the little guy. We don’t have a lot of details confirmed but we are going out of our way to make this festival as cheap (financially) as possible while as high value as an experience as we can. There are a lot of opportunities to meet and network with other improvisers, play with them and learn from them even outside of workshops.

Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson we’ve learned: when festivals take care of their performers, performers want to come back year after year. That is what we’re striving for with PCF 2014.

One note I would add that may be unique to Pittsburgh (I at least have not been exposed to this side of other festivals) is a huge effort to involve community partners. Collaboration, public/private partnerships, Art+Tech are a huge part of the Pittsburgh culture, and Brian is working hard to find symbiotic relationships with area partners. Here are some examples so far:

What’s going on in the city when the improv isn’t happening? What should people see?

Phipps

Phipps


WHERE TO START?!

I have been in Pittsburgh 14 years now and I still find new, amazing and wonderful gems in this city every year. I’ll pick a few in different categories.

Do this first: Phipps Conservatory is right down the street from our venue and full of plants and art.

A “Pittsburgh” thing to do: Eat a Primanti Brothers sandwich. We’re famous for these. It’s meat, coleslaw and fries on a sandwich. Alternately, check out the Duquesne Incline. Some of the country’s oldest continuously operating inclines and beautiful views of the city.

Want better food than Primanti’s? Check out our burgeoning food scene at Salt, Avenue B, Tender or Meat and Potatoes, just to name a few.

A Pittsburgh attraction: Catch a Pirates game at PNC Park. The ballpark, opened in 2001, features great views of the city over the Allegheny River and a 50/50 shot at some good baseball. There are games Wed night before PCF kicks off and Sunday afternoon after the festival.

A little culture: Pittsburgh has great museums, large and small. I’d recommend the Andy Warhol Museum and The Mattress Factory for off-beat art. There’s also the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History a short walk from our venue.

Worth sticking around for: extend your trip to see Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright (about 1.5 hours drive North of the city) or the Bayernoff Museum (20 mins North, a mini-mansion with secret passages and one of the largest collections of automatic musical instruments). Both require reservations in advance and are 100% WORTH SEEING.

If you come back another weekend (which I recommend!), you can also check out:

Art crawls: downtown once a quarter and for the young and hip crowd, head over to the Penn Avenue Arts District on the first Friday every month (followed by a great dance party).

Killer small theater scene: Bricolage, Barebones Productions, City Theater, Pittsburgh Playwrights, Quantum Theater, Uncumber Theatrics (to name a few).

You’re surrounded by a lot of great cities. Many performers will be driving to the festival, but many will be considering flying out. That’s an investment. What do you hope they’ll take away from the festival that will make it a great experience for them? And for you?


I would love performers to leave PCF thinking:

  • They really went out of there way to take care of me and my group.
  • We had a fun show on an amazing stage–large and open but with an intimate feel. And built for theater. That’s where I like to perform improv.
  • I met so many amazing people! I took advantage of the happy hour, the drink specials after shows, and hit up the performer/volunteer party and felt I had a lot of time to connect with other performers.
  • I am really thinking about my work in new ways. I took some great workshops and got to ask a burning question at the comedy panel.
  • Overall, I had no idea there was such an amazing growing scene in Pittsburgh. I’m definitely coming back for PCF 2015 if not before!

If you’d like to visit Pittsburgh, submit now.


Currently Bill is an instructor at The Torch Theatre and producer for the Phoenix Improv Festival. He tours teaching and performing across North America.

Jimmy Carrane’s New Book: Improv Therapy

Jimmy CarraneIf there is anything about Jimmy it’s that he is probably one of the most honest improvisors there is. Just listen to any Improv Nerd podcast and you’ll see what I mean. I had a chance to interview improvisor, master teacher, blogger and Improv Nerd Jimmy Carrane about his newest book Improv Therapy.

What inspired you to write Improv Therapy?

I think with everything I do — my blog, the Improv Nerd podcast, my teaching and this book — I am trying to offer emotional support to improvisers that I did not get when I was starting out in improv as a needy, fat kid in the ’80s.

As you know, the culture of improv is supportive — the whole “yes and…” and “making your partner look good” thing. But that is different than how you feel about yourself or how you react to a bad show or the jealousy you feel about other people’s success. These are the things that get in the way of your career, and they are the things most improvisers don’t want to talk about. But not talking about it does not make it go away. In fact, it actually gets worse, and by talking about it, it gets better and you become a better improviser. I feel like a broken record, but improv is a personal art form, and what affects us off stage in our lives has a direct effect on our improvising.

What do you want improvisers to get out of this book?

To know it’s ok to feel and think certain things like jealousy or shame or wanting to kill yourself after a bad show and there is nothing wrong with it. Actually, it’s healthy if you do think those thoughts. And by doing admitting it, you will become a better improviser. Also, if you need outside help, get it, because improv is not going to solve all of your problems.

Tell us about your process in writing this book…

Just as when I wrote Improvising Better with Liz Allen, we did not start out to write an improv book. Other people suggested it.  Same thing with Improv Therapy. As I was writing my blogs every week, people kept saying “There is a book here.” Of course, I didn’t believe them. As with most of my creative endeavors, a lot of procrastination was involved.

Maybe it’s my improv training, but I could not write this book alone. So, my wife, Lauren, who loves to make lists and also edits my blogs, gathered all of my blogs together and found a theme to them, which was emotions. Then I needed to do some additional writing around the chapters, and she kept me on a schedule, and towards the end she confronted me on my perfectionism and said, “The book is done. ”

What is the difference between your first book, Improvising Better, and your newest book?<

Improvising Better is great how-to book. You have this problem in improv and this how you can fix it. I think it’s inspirational and a very easy read. I can’t believe it’s in its fifth printing. I am really proud of the collaboration between Liz Allen and me on that book. Improv Therapy is more emotional. It talks about bigger concepts of anger, shame, jealousy and joy.

Improvising Better is about the outer game while Improv Therapy is more about the inner game. I think it reflects my work in therapy and recovery from numerous addictions and it’s more from a student’s point of view

The second book also reflects my relationship with improv today. When I wrote the first book, I was primarily a teacher. At that point, I had given up on performing. I was more rigid in my thinking that there was a certain way to improvise. Doing Improv Nerd has opened my mind. It’s been like doing acid — you see how all these different approaches work.

About Improv Therapy:

Improv Therapy is an honest and insightful book about the things improvisers don’t want to discuss: their feelings. Written by Jimmy Carrane, host of the Improv Nerd podcast, Improv Therapytakes a look at the improviser’s mind and what blocks improvisers on stage, and gives them practical advice to overcome their issues so they can become the improviser they always dreamed of being.

To purchase Jimmy’s book Improv Therapy you can get it for $3.99 (What a steal!) as a PDF or on Kindle.

About Jimmy Carrane:

Jimmy Carrane is the host of Improv Nerd and co-author ofImprovising Better: A Guide to the Working Improviser  and Improv Therapy: How to Get Out of Your Own Way to Become a Better Improviser. His Art of Slow Comedy class won the 2012 INNY Award for Best Comedy Class/Workshop. A well-known improv teacher, Jimmy has taught at The Second City, IO-Chicago, and The Annoyance and he currently teaches classes at Green Shirt Studio and Stage 773 in Chicago. He was also an original member of The Annoyance Theater and Armando at iO Chicago, and has performed in some of Chicago most innovative and ground-breaking long-form improv shows, such as Jazz Freddy and Naked< (a two-person one-hour improvised scene with MAD TV’s Stephanie Weir.) His other theater & improv credits include: I’m 27, I Still Live at Home and Sell Office Supplies,Godshow,Every Old Man,Living in Dwarf’s House and Summer Rental at The Second City, e.t.c. For more information on Jimmy, please visit www.jimmycarrane.com.

improv-therapy-book-cover


Nick is Camp Director and Founder of Improv Utopia an improv retreat for adults in California and Pennsylvania. He is also one of the founding members of the National Improv Network and performer and teacher at iO West as well as member of The Sunday Company at The Groundlings.  He has also taught many workshops around the country. We are always looking for better ways to serve the community. Drop us a line and let us know what you want.

To e-mail nick e-mail nick@nationalimprovnetwork.com. For more information visit: http://www.nickarmstrong.com or http://www.improvutopia.com

 

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