Let's Talk Improv
A weekly round up of what's happening in the world of Wellington improv (Monday 8 August)
Kia ora koutou, my improv friends! In this brave new world of multiplying improv companies running a variety of workshops, shows and communities, and my own limited bandwidth for attendance (thanks Covid and parenting), I have found myself wanting a quick way to know all of the things going on - what I’m missing, who’s doing what and where, what new things are popping up and how I can support them and get involved when possible. This newsletter is my way of attempting to stay on top of everything and support the scene, in lieu of doing so with my presence as regularly as I’d like.
This newsletter uses Substack which means you can either sign up and get it as an email, or download the app on iOS and get it there. I’ve found the app really great for keeping up with my newsletters, and for engaging with them too.
If you think this is something useful, sign up. Tell a friend. It’s mostly for us improvisors - not that our wonderful audience isn’t welcome of course! It’s just you might not be as interested in the nuts and bolts of it all. If that’s the case, scroll to shows then tune out and kia pai tō rā. If you want a little more, keep reading, share it round, and let me know if you have events or announcements I can boost, either by commenting or replying to this email.
In preparing to write this, I started a list of all the companies currently running in Wellington. And I contacted a few to ask the best way to know what’s going on. And then I realised I have even more questions for you all and that I’d love to share up-to-date information about the different groups; what each does and how people can get involved, whether that’s as audience or participants. It would be a huge help if those of you who run an improv entity in Wellington could chuck a bunch of info into this form and help me get started on these… ImProfiles (is it even improv if it doesn’t have a pun in its name?). Anyway, here’s the first one!
imProfile: TINY DOG
Who they are: Tiny Dog started last year (2021) with monthly shows at BATS Theatre and are a bunch of very charming women and nonbinary improvisors! They are: Gabby Anderson, Lesa MacLeod-Whiting, Charlotte Glucina, Alayne Dick, and Stevie Hancox-Monk (with occasional guest performers).
What they do: A 50 minute improvised comedy show held monthly-ish at BATS Theatre. They invite the audience to submit offers based on changing prompts on post-it notes pre-show, and then perform scenes inspired by post-its selected at random. It’s very silly and very fun.
The vibe: Very funny people at their most silly, supporting each other and the audience to have a good time. “Our philosophy is that the audience should never feel pressured to contribute to the performance. We’ve found that we are able to get richer topics by supporting the audience to interact in an individual and low-pressure way. We’ve all been in that improv show where someone panics and yells “dildo” right?”
Get involved: At the moment this is a tight ensemble with invited guests, so getting involved is about joining their enthusiastic audience! Maybe they’ll hold auditions one day…
Stay updated: Tiny Dog recommends fans follow their Instagram page to hear about upcoming shows.
coming up this week…
shows
PopRox Improv (PopRox). Friday 12 August, 8pm at Te Auaha, tix $18-20.
workshops
The Status Bootcamp with Austin Harrison (Improv Connection). Sunday 14 August, 10am-4pm at Toi Poneke, $175.
other stuff
NZ Fringe runs 17 Feb - 11 March 2023. Registrations open 2nd Sept - 15th of October 2022. Venues like BATS and Te Auaha have earlier pitching dates - check them out for more info.
Brisbane Improv Festival has closed its submissions but for anyone looking to travel, it’s on 12 November to 19 November 2022 and hosted by Big Fork Theatre.
A Health-first Approach for Rehearsing and Presenting Live Performance in Aotearoa New Zealand: this is an incredible and thorough resource from TheatreScenes, who’ve done all the hard work of researching and planning and all we need to do is implement it.
Let me know what you think! Tell me what I missed this week! Hit reply or comment and fill me in.
Mā te wā,
Jen