Improv festivals changed my life. They are the single biggest reason I have a career in improv. From learning new styles to meeting new collaborators, here’s why I think you and your group should apply to festivals.
In general, I find improvisers to be bright, kind and generous with their time and talents. Now imagine discovering hundreds and hundreds of new improvisers — some with interesting and potentially alluring accents. That’s what the festival scene is like. You travel hundreds of miles from home and sure enough there’s your community ready to meet you. I have been consistently delighted and humbled by the people I’ve met on my travels. I’m excited to create new things with them and proud to call them my friends. Even if you’re a little shy and not used to starting conversations with strangers, at one of these festivals you’re golden.
I mean, that’s why we’re all here anyway, isn’t it? Watch as eyes light up and conversation starts to flow. Relax. You have arrived. There’s nothing to fear anymore. We’re going to talk about improv until the sun comes up.
When the shows start at an international improv festival, you discover pretty quickly that you don’t all do improv the same way. And that means you get a gloriously undiluted insight into the depth, breadth and sheer potential of our art form.
Fed-up of Harolds and narrative musicals? Feel like you might scream if someone says “New choice” again? Well then, feast your eyes on comedic acrobats doing silent long-form or sets inspired by the characters of commedia dell’arte.
Or an improv version of Law and Order.
Shows in the dark, shows in different languages, shows of breathtaking and heartfelt lyrical beauty. At a festival, your sense of what improv is will be challenged, flexed, stretched and prodded. It’ll be knocked into new shapes and new configurations. Sure, you won’t like all of it. Some of it will inevitably leave you cold, but the point is you won’t be able to rest on your laurels. Improv is a living, breathing act of creation in constant flux. How silly we are to try and force it into little labelled boxes?
It’s great to be reminded of this. To share shiny new ideas. To be inspired to make something new.
You know who else likes coming to festivals? Really exceptional improv teachers from all over the world. They helpfully congregate in one place so you can learn from them. Watch a show and then grab a drink with a favourite instructor in the bar afterwards. Generally festival teachers are in their element and more than willing to have you talk their ear off about any aspect of the craft.
I’m not a comedian but I doubt you can be 6 months into your stand-up career and reasonably expect to spend an evening debating audience dynamics with Hasan Minhaj. In improv it’s not just possible, it’s pretty darn likely.
