When I first moved to Cincinnati three years ago all of my anxieties resurfaced with an aggressive verve, and I had developed survival tactics that were serving my anxious thoughts rather than quieting them. That discovery is what led me to my first Improv Cincy workshop.
Read MoreWhile it is quite ambitious to come up with 90 minutes of a continuous story, with actual songs (yes, singing and live music) on-the-spot, it’s nothing that a group of dedicated improv performers can’t handle! These are the top four questions we get asked about Hot Mic!, and our answers.
Read MoreTrue Theatre, one of Cincinnati's most iconic storytelling shows, shares IC's philosophy and approach for creating captivating and emotionally resonant stories. Read what they think makes a good story.
Read MoreIn celebration of Mother’s Day on May 13, 2018, we want to highlight and celebrate our improv students, performers, volunteers and friends in our tight-knit community who are also moms. Get to know Amber Nash, who you might see at a show or may recognize as “Adult Eleven” from IC’s Stranger Things parody, “Holiday at Hopper’s.”
Read MoreIn celebration of Mother’s Day on May 13, 2018, we want to highlight and celebrate our improv students, performers, volunteers and friends in our tight-knit community who are also moms. Get to know Mary O’Connell, IC company member you might also see performing with Hot Mic!
Read MoreIn celebration of Mother’s Day on May 13, 2018, we want to highlight and celebrate our improv students, performers, volunteers and friends in our tight-knit community who are also moms. Get to know Erica Bauman, house manager and level 2 student, who you often see volunteering with her daughter.
Read MoreWe blinked in January and now it’s early May. Can you believe it? 2018 has been an amazing year for Improv Cincinnati, and it’s all because of you, who make up the amazing community of improvisers and improv supporters. Read more from Jon and Colin.
Read MoreMeet Amanda Monyhan, from the Veracity team, who regularly applies the idea of "there are no mistakes, only gifts" to her life and improv.
Read MoreMeet Sasha Korotkov, student in the level 5 class (The Harold) and performer on the Veracity team, who loves improv’s stage camaraderie and support.
Read MoreIt’s a treat when *we* get to be the audience, and we got to do just that at “Whose Live Anyway?” at the Taft Theatre on April 19, 2018.
Read MoreMeet Daniel Zimmer, piano player with IC's improvised musical Hot Mic! (and one half of EZ/DZ with Delmar Davis).
Read MoreMeet Charlie Roetting, IC company member who has taught classes on character and game and performs with various teams (jam team, Fractal Rock, and more).
Read MoreMeet Kevin Habich, a new performer on the Veracity team and Level 5 student.
Read MoreMeet Ellyn Broderick, a performer with IC's improvised musical Hot Mic! and someone who won’t leave the house without eating toast.
Read MoreImprov Cincinnati is excited to announce a new improv opportunity for students who have completed the Core Curriculum (Levels 1 through 5). These teams will give students ongoing opportunities to perform for audiences, receive coaching, and to develop an ensemble. It is our hope these teams will continue to cultivate a thriving and inclusive improv community, and to expand students’ breadth and depth of improv experience.
When and Where are Auditions? Tuesday, March 13th 7-9pm at Dramakinetics
Who can attend? Any student who has graduated Level 5, or those who have been specially asked.
How much does it cost? $80 for 11 weeks. 75% of the cost goes directly to training Coach. The remaining 25% covers space expense.
What is the commitment? Rehearsals are every Sunday, either 1-3pm with Tatiana Godfrey or 3:30-5:30pm with Jen Burns (both of which will be at Clifton Performance Theatre.
Students must be able to attend 80% of scheduled rehearsals and shows. Failing to due so will result in removal from the team.
When are performances? Performances will be select Saturdays at 10pm following the weekly 8pm Improv Cincinnati show. The cost will be free for audience members who stay after the 8pm show or $5 for anyone who attends exclusively for the late show.
What happens after 11 weeks? IC Leadership will make a decision based on factors such as ensemble/student preference, coach feedback, performance quality, student attendance/commitment, etc. Possible outcomes include but are not limited to:
1. The student team stays together for another session and is assigned a different coach.
2. The student team disbands, and the existing students are reshuffled into different teams.
3. Individual students are selected to be placed on an IC house team or project.
We’re incredibly excited about these new teams, and we can’t wait to see our students continue to grow as improvisers. Please email any questions to info@improvcincinnati.com
All the best,
Colin and Jon
Improv Cincinnati is passionate about creating a community that is inclusive and welcoming of all students. As such, we are thrilled to announce the creation of a new diversity scholarship program to create new opportunities for individuals who are often underrepresented in improv. The scholarship is for anyone who can make Improv Cincinnati more diverse, including people of color, LGBT+ community members, veterans, immigrants, and differently-abled individuals.
Each session, at least two scholarships will be awarded to cover all class fees. Applicants may apply for any level, assuming they meet the required prerequisites. Students may reapply as many times as they like. The scholarship is open to any of the diverse groups mentioned above, but priority will be given to those students with the greatest financial need. Students not picked for the scholarship may be offered reduced tuition.
Thanks to everyone who applies! We’re so grateful for the Improv Cincinnati community, and we know we’ll grow stronger, more supported, and more connected through even greater diversity.
Improv Cincinnati is producing a scripted Christmas-themed parody of Stranger Things. The performances will be on December 8th and 15th. We are searching for talented actors who resemble the featured kid characters: Eleven, Dustin, Will, Mike, Lucas, and Max. All other roles have been cast. Auditionees can be young teens or young-looking adults. IC recommends watching both seasons before auditioning, but it's not required.
When: Sunday Nov. 12th; 1-3pm
Where: Liberty Exhibition Hall (3938 Spring Grove Ave.)
Please fill out the audition registration below. Send any questions to info@improvcincinnati.com
Improv Cincinnati students Erica Riddick and John Cadman traded experiences from their daily lives. She offered him preview tickets to the haunted house where she has been moonlighting, and he offered her a tour of GE, where he is an engineer, for her birthday.
Read MoreDelmar Davis is an Improv Cincinnati mentor, student, performer, and accompanist. He's also a Zen Buddhist teacher, former HR executive, acclaimed jazz guitarist, and much more. Delmar has contributed more to IC's development than we can ever hope to repay. When he wrote a blog post about his experience with improv for his own company, Easing in Fitness, we figured the least we could do was to re-post it. Here it is:
Improv(e) Your Health - by Delmar Davis, Easing in Fitness
Here is a belief I continue to see both culturally and in the minds of clients, no matter how much proselytizing I do about the Easing In Fitness principles: to get healthy and well requires work and hardship. It’s the old “no pain, no gain” thing. But I’ve found more evidence for how this truism need not be true.
Last year when I started sharing the Easing In Fitness approach with the wide world beyond one-to-one client contact, I realized public speaking and video were going to be important media. And although I had years of experience making presentations, facilitating meetings, and delivering training, my performance on camera was flat. Okay, it was worse than flat, as in total-body-cringe bad.
I sought help from a coach who proclaimed, “Delmar, get thee to an improv comedy class!” My coach said that if I could be comfortable in front of people in that medium, pretty much everything else would be cake.
So with some trepidation I did. A little over a year ago I signed on for a Level 1 class at Improv Cincinnati. I thought it would be work and would involve discomfort, but I did it anyway to serve my goals. No pain, no gain, right?
And I was bitten by the improv bug. While this post is not a blog-fo-mercial for practicing improv in general or at Improv Cincinnati in particular, I will say that discovering the culture of positivity and the sense of community created by founders Jon Ulrich and Colin Thornton has been a true joy. I planned on enduring a couple classes for my professional growth, but ended up somehow doubling up on my training, taking a role as musical accompanist, and joining a performance team. And I’ve made great friends among the creative, talented, beautiful weirdniks who find fun in doing adult make-believe.
Like I said, I got bit.
And it became yet another reference point for how pain is not necessary for gain.
Just to be clear, we develop strength and resources in response to challenge. Muscles and bones only strengthen in response to being taxed beyond their current capacity. Hearts and lungs only get more efficient in response to being asked to approach their limits. Bodies only learn to move with more fluidity and flexibility by engaging in clumsy and awkward new movements.
And we only get more comfortable performing in front of people by getting up in front of people and doing ridiculous things. Which, by the way, I did. Studying improv has vastly improved my performance and comfort in front of a camera. Check.
Here’s the icing on the cake, however, that improv reinforced for me: the challenge itself can be fun. We can create a safe and fun environment such that when we are operating outside of our capabilities and are taxing our resources such that they will grow, we are still having a blast. The challenge itself can be fun and feel good, and we still get to keep and enjoy all the resulting benefits.
Oh yeah, and one other thing: laughter is good for your health. Really good. Do it as often as possible.
Scene! (That’s improv-speak for “The End.”)
Today’s take-away:
Easing In Fitness Principle #1: Fun, feel-good fitness. You can love the results of exercise AND the challenge itself.
Together, let’s end the fight to get fit!
Delmar
---
Delmar is a life coach who specializes in helping people remove obstacles to getting started and sticking with their fitness or wellness plan. Find out more at easingin.com.
Sometimes the most meaningful moments in an improv class come in the first ten minutes when students have time to share and be vulnerable. Performing on stage with strangers requires trust, and trust is rarely earned without vulnerability. We spend so much time playing status games with neighbors and putting up walls to coworkers that allowing ourselves to be exposed can be extremely difficult. But sometimes the simple things that seem challenging, like sharing to a group, can also be deeply rewarding.
One day, I asked my students to talk about an object from their childhood that had symbolic meaning to them. Each individual object the students recollected revealed a deeper truth about them. There have been so many great examples that have been shared, but my favorite (told here with permission) was from Thom.
Thom's symbolic object was a puppet of the Popeye character Wimpy. He found it when his family went on a trip to New York City in the early 60s. It was lying in the gutter and Thom picked it up, saved it from oblivion. It quickly became his favorite toy. He took it everywhere. He talked to it. His parents were worried because he loved it so much. One day Thom took the puppet to school and kept it on his hand. His teacher was not pleased and sent him down the long hall to the dreaded principal's office. The no-nonsense principal yanked the puppet off his hand, threw it in the trash, and informed Thom that he was too old to play with toys. And that was the last poor Thom saw of his Wimpy puppet. You can imagine how upsetting it must have been.
Thom's story reminded me of a time when I was in 5th grade playing at recess. I was splashing in puddles and playing when the teacher called everyone to go inside. I was having so much fun playing that I didn't notice everyone in line. When I finally straggled over, the kids in line all started saying, "We see you Colin." I realized that my teacher had instructed them to make that comment to shame me for seeking attention, which wasn't even true. It was a moment that stayed with me way longer than it should have. It was my puppet in the trashcan.
When I arrived home, I felt compelled to see whether I could find a wimpy puppet on Ebay. There couldn't be too many Wimpy puppets form the 50s and 60s. Sure enough, I found one that I was certain was the same puppet as Thom's. And it wasn't too expensive. So, I bought it for him and gave it to him on the final class. To me, it was more than a little puppet: it was the reason I helped create Improv Cincinnati. I was giving Thom permission to play.
A final comment. Thom told me that he took the puppet to work to share the story with his colleagues. He said that one coworker grabbed the puppet off his hand and threw it in the trashcan. Hearing that really made me upset. You're never too old for someone to tell you you're too old to play. If you ever have someone like that in your life, just do what Thom did and pick that puppet out of the trashcan. Give yourself permission to play.
