Every once in a while, the stars align, and the paths of Andrew and Mithra cross to create scenic shows inspired by stories from the audience about childhood dreams and aspirations. Expect a roller coaster of a performance that will have you reminiscing for years to come.
Performer Bio
Andrew and Mithra have been improvising in the San Francisco Bay Area for ages. They focus on grounded scene work and take their time to discover the core of an emotional relationship between characters. They have performed at numerous festivals, including the Red Rocks Improv Festival and the San Francisco Improv Festival.
Do you love improv but always thought something was missing? That’s because there’s always Room for Improvment!
Room for Improvment takes classic improv games and turns them on their head. Combining the improv you know and love from shows such as ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway’ with the zany slapstick humour of a Japanese game show, Room for Improvment brings it’s insane brand of improv comedy to the Australian Improv Festival.
For the first time ever, Room for Improvment will be combining the best bits of all their smash hit sold-out shows and headlining performances into a ‘greatest hits’ show. Whether you’ve never seen improv or you’ve seen 100 improv shows you’ll find yourself cheering on our brave performers as they tackle some hilariously painful, embarrassing and messy challenges; all while making scenes off the top of their heads in a one of a kind show.
Performer Bio
Room for Improvment is a young, improv troupe based out of both Sydney’s South-West and the Illawarra, known for their outlandish take on short form improv. With a wide range of performance backgrounds, including theatre, stand-up and even professional wrestling, Room for Improvment pride themselves on combining these skills to create a cavalcade of weird and wonderful characters, outrageous parodies and bizarrely compelling scenes. Amongst them, they have been both Illawarra Playmates Improv Competition winners and ImproAustralia’s Scared Scriptless Cup runner-ups for 2018, while headlining gigs across Wollongong and performing to sold out crowds in their self-produced shows.
This act features grounded relationships, multiple characters, and a high level of physicality. It’s not a show unless Vinay and Alfred have lifted each other up in awkward positions at least once. The duo often utilize all areas of the stage (and areas off stage when possible) to give audience members an immersive, expressive, and rollicking good time.
Performer Bio
Vinay and Alfred originally met in their high school cafeteria as awkward 14 year olds, never imagining that a decade later they would meet again in the same improv class as awkward adults. Sensing a chemistry, they formed “Hot Doggies,” going on to perform on shows across Toronto, Chicago, Baltimore, and Delray Beach. Vinay has been moonlighting as an improviser in Toronto for several years and is a graduate of the Second City Conservatory Program. He has also studied both Long form and Clown at the Second City. Alfred is a Toronto improvisor and has performed in improv festivals such as Harold Fest, Big City Improv Festival, Baltimore Improv Festival, and Palm Beach Improv Festival. He has also performed in Bangkok Thailand, and has taught improv workshops in Hanoi Vietnam.
“Stories! Melodies! Anarchy! Oh my!” The Lady Fingers bring you cheeky, musical, character based, scenic, improvisational theatre. Watch and be amazed as these three mischief makers improvise vocal music to inform scene work, make multiple characters and abundant laughs. Storylines may cross, characters may disappear or return in this fun adventure into acappella music, clowning, playfulness and delight.
Performer Bio
In an endeavour to move away from “talky” improv, Sydney based Lady Fingers is an experimental trio that incorporate music, physicality and theatricality into their improvised shows. Starring: Anne Wilson, Linda Calgaro and Linette Voller – three experienced improvisers, comedians, music makers and actors. Anne is a professional actor, working in television and theatre. Linda is a professional singer, musician, actor and improv teacher. Linette is an actor and comedienne, having worked in film and Sydney’s stand-up comedy circuit. Three Ladies, 30 fingers, one purpose: to delight.
Awards
“Best Ensemble” and “Best Show” at the New Zealand Improv Festival.
Soothplayers create all new Shakespearean plays completely on the damn spot. That’s right, an entire play from start to finish all based on the suggestion of a title from the audience. Despite the show using the conventions of Shakespeare, the end result is often quite revisionist in terms of how certain issues are treated – particularly in regards to feminism. And the people love them for it at sold-out shows all across Australia. Don’t sleep on this one.
Performer Bio
Soothplayers are a Melbourne based theatre company that perform their infamous, and always sold-out, shows “Completely Improvised Shakespeare” and “Completely Improvised Potter” to audiences across Australia. Don’t miss this chanceth to see what they doth do.
Reviews
“Soothplayers’ rowdy, hilarious plays are incredibly enjoyable and kind of astounding.”
The Age
“Soothplayers will leave you wondering why you didn’t enjoy studying Shakespeare at school.”
Fairytales, westerns, sci-fi, bio-pics, whatever the genre, The A-Team will play it. Give them the name of a famous or historical figure and they will instantly build a narrative through song and dance that tells you their whole life story.
Performer Bio
The A-Team is a narrative musical improv group who perform one-act genre musical narratives and improvised musical biopics based on the suggestion of an historical or famous person. They perform regularly in and around the Los Angeles improv community including at UCB, IO and Second City.
Murder Murder is an improvised murder mystery troupe born out of the Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) theater in Los Angeles. Watch as they perform a murder mystery right before your very eyes! Laugh along and see if you can discover who-dun-it!
Performer Bio
Murder Murder developed their unique murder mystery show at the UCB in Los Angeles under the direction of Billy Merritt and have been performing regularly throughout Los Angeles at UCB, IO and Second City.
We are thrilled and honored to be hosting the inaugural Australian Improv Comedy Festival Shows at the acclaimed Seymour Centre in Sydney.
Note: All festival workshops will be held at the NSW Teachers Federation Conference Centre in Surry Hills – near Central Station.
Centrally located world-class theatre venue!
Seymour has just the right vibe for the festival. As a theatre for contemporary performing arts, they reflect the same values of openness, collaboration and diversity that we have as an improv community.
Since it opened in 1975, the Seymour Centre has become one of Sydney’s leading cultural hubs.
It’s a venue that has played host to some of Australia’s most famous faces, with Geoffrey Rush, Jackie Weaver, Judy Davis, Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman (in her professional debut) and Mel Gibson among the stars to have trodden the boards in their earliest productions.
The Seymour has also welcomed a remarkable array of international artists and companies to the stage in its first 40 years, including Florence and the Machine, DV8, Royal Shakespeare Company, Steven Berkoff, Robert Lepage, Seal, Neil Finn and Eddie Vedder. It has served as a versatile performance space for Australian companies such as Nimrod Theatre Company, Belvoir, The Australian Opera, Musica Viva, Circus Oz and in its early years, Sydney Dance Company.
The Seymour Centre is a multi-purpose performing arts centre located within the University of Sydney. It is located on the corner of City Rd. and Cleveland St. in Chippendale, just south-west of the city centre.
“The Seymour has, without doubt, been the venue for some of Sydney’s most memorable theatre experiences, some that still live in the memories of many theatre-goers among the best theatre they’ve ever seen.” It has also been the place where emerging arts companies have been ‘taken-in’ to become residents, and provided a range of benefits to help them reach their potential and move to the next level of sustainability.”
Tim Jones, Artistic Director Seymour Centre
Note: All workshops will be held at The NSW Teachers Federation Conference Centre.
On behalf of the the Australian Improv Festival, we’d like to cordially invite you and all your funniest friends to stick it.
We’ve got some new stickers to help promote the festival and you can get some by coming to a show, taking a class at LMA or one of the many schools around the world that we sent some too including: UCB, The Second City, WestSide Comedy, BATS, Magnet Theatre, The Nursery, and more.
We’d also like to invite you to come down under and play, teach, and chase some Kangaroos.
If you can’t fathom the idea of 14+ hours on a plane, then perhaps you can share AIF with people who might…
Give away some stickers, give us a like on Facebook, tell your friends at other schools, current and past teammates, old lovers, even your dog.
Actually not your dog, they get put in quarantine for like three months at customs. It’s very sad.
And if you’re local to Australia, then get on over to The Improv Network and register to play and/or teach today!
This festival is for you.
And in the meantime, #funnyAiF is where you can quickly find and share all AIF related… stuff.
We’re pleased to announce that Little Caesars Pizza has come on board to help support the Australian Improv Festival. Save yourself 5% off in the meantime with code LMA2019 and keep those elastic waist pants clean and handy.
