Viola Spolin News

Share the Love with ANDTheatre Company! ANDTheatre celebrate its 36th season with a benefit show Thursday November 5th. All proceeds from the show go to AND's continuing classes, ongoing development of new and exciting work, as well as deeply needed artist salaries. Yes, it's online and with improv, music, magic and sketch!

Businesses are starting to struggle with Zoom fatigue. Unexpected Productions, which has been teaching improv skills team building classes for over 30 years has pivoted to assisting teams in creating productive, but entertaining meetings on Zoom, Google Hangouts and Microsoft's Teams.

Since 2012, IRTE, the Improvisational Repertory Theatre Ensemble, LLC, an award-winning collective of comedy actors and writers who develop, produce and perform a season of original themed improvisational shows, following the basic model of traditional repertory theatre, has been one of New York's go-2 places for imaginative and improvised comedy!

Join the American Writers Museum as they honor the work of Viola Spolin, author and a?oemothera?? of improvisational theater. Ms. Spolin's groundbreaking work and codification of her theater games into a training method and philosophy eventually led to the creation of The Second City.

The Second City returns to the McAninch Arts Center (MAC) Valentine's Day Weekend for a?oeThe Best of the Second Citya?? at 5 and 8 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 15. Some of the company's rising stars of today will perform a sampling of the best sketches, songs, and improvisations from The Second City's 60-year history. Perfect for date night, attendees will have the chance to enjoy drink specials and free chocolates and, to make the evening extra special, add-on VIP Suite Service, including a private, pre-show cocktail and hors d'oeuvres reception, with coffee and dessert at intermission.  

The Revival is excited to announce the return of BREAKDOWN: A LIVING NEWSFEED a?" a news-based improv comedy performance.

It's Putting on the Ritz for ANDTheatre Company! Come as you are or in your best dress jeans and help ANDTheatre celebrate its 35th season with a benefit show at the Triad Theatre (158 West 72nd Street, NYC), Tuesday November 19th. All proceeds from the show go to AND's continuing classes, performances, and ongoing development of new and exciting work. It's Putting on the Ritz for ANDTheatre Company!

There's a reason the biggest names in laughter all catapulted their careers at The Second City...it's been the funniest place on the planet since '59! Witness the next generation of comedy superstars put their spin on the legendary comedy company's greatest hits, re-booted and re-imagined for today. From sketch comedy to original songs to world-famous improv, The Second City is fresh, fast, and always spectacularly funny

The classic Second City comedy sketches and original songs that launched generations of comedy legends have been re-booted and re-imagined for the company's current cast of future superstars in The Second City Tour: Greatest Hits (Vol. 59). The tour comes to Musco Center for the Arts for one night only, Wednesday, October 16, at 7:30pm.

Kevin McDonald from Kids in the Hall just agreed to perform at Unexpected Productions with Artistic Director, Randy Dixon in After...Words, an original improv show created by Dixon. This special performance is ONLY on July 26th and 27th at 8:30. Tickets $12 - $15.

PIE Story Theatre debuted in Central Park in the summer of 1991. Now after a multitude of successful companies in New York, New Jersey, Chicago and Los Angeles, it makes its Massachusetts premiere at Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater and the Outer Cape beginning on July 7th at 3PM at the Larry Phillips Performance Pavilion. The program then tours the entire Outer Cape community with performances from Dennis to Provincetown at a variety of venues. All of the performances are free of charge. The current PIE Company is: Colby Bell, Alyssa Freeman, Terrence Rex Moos, Paige O'Connor and Aisling Sheahan.

This summer, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater expands its family programming to include free performances of P.I.E. (Projects In Education) Story Theatre. PIE can be seen at venues including the Orleans Elementary School, Salt Pond Amphitheater in Eastham, Wellfleet & Truro Libraries, Wellfleet Preservation Hall, Wellfleet Farmer's Market, Provincetown Family Week, and Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater.

The Writers Studio at the Coachella Valley Repertory Conservatory will present a first-of-its-kind event in December 2018. 'The Desert of Love,' a new full-length play by Studio member Bruce Bonafede, will be presented as a public staged reading on Saturday, December 15. The reading will be mounted on the CVRep main stage and marks the first time the group has presented a reading of a full-length play by one of its members.

A graduate of Northern Arizona University, Bert Emmett has taught, acted in, produced, written, and directed plays for over 35 years. Bert's favorite acting roles in L.A. include Col. Armadillo in The Armadillo Necktie (Last Straw Award), Karl Lindner is A Raisin in the Sun (A Noise Within), Kanute in Don't Hug Me I'm Pregnant (Eddon Award).  Other LA shows include Sherlock Through the Looking Glass, Lombardi,  Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, Sherlock's Last Case (Scenies Award), and Cobb.  Film: 'The Forsaken," 'Alien Hunter," 'Outside Ozona," and "Our Next Caller" (with Eric Roberts). Member of SAG/AFTRA and AEA.  This is Bert's directorial debut at The Group Rep.  When did you get interested in directing?

Aretha Sills, daughter of The Second City's founding director Paul Sills, and granddaughter of Viola Spolin, known as the mother of improvisational theater, is launching a youth theater program in Studio City on September 15.

Whether you're a working comedian or just hoping to use humor to punch up your presentations, build your confidence or public speaking ability, Don Barnhart is one of the most sought out comedy coaches in the industry because he actually does it for a living.

TRUMP IN SPACE is a combination of Star Trek and Avenue Q meeting Trump, a musical battle of good vs. bad and ideals vs. opportunism, with tons of sex and profanity thrown in for fun. This original musical is an epic space adventure filled with all the sci-fi tropes we love and all the politics we love to hate. Taking place four hundred years in the future when the fallout of the Trump administration has left humans stranded without a planet, Captain Natasha Trump (Gillian Bellinger, writer of the script and lyrics), a direct descendant of President Donald J. Trump, races to find humanity a new planet called Polaris 4 to call home.

The Second City's latest sketch comedy and improv revue, Look Both Ways Before Talking, is an evening of wildly original, ever-daring, and truly hilarious scripted scenes, music, and improvisation chock full of social and political satire. Edgy, thought-provoking, and always spectacularly funny, The Second City is celebrating nearly six decades of producing cutting-edge, satirical revues and launching the careers of generation after generation of comedy's best and brightest.

Whether you're a working comedian or just hoping to use humor to punch up your presentations, build your confidence or public speaking ability, Don Barnhart is one of the most sought out comedy coaches in the industry because he actually does it for a living.

The nonprofit AT&T Performing Arts Center announced today that tickets for the 2018 Off Broadway on Flora season are on sale now! The Off Broadway On Flora season will feature a diverse range of shows ranging from immersive theatre to improv comedy to searing satire, many of which have enjoyed sold-out success in New York, Chicago and London.