Austin Improv

Live theater was once a form of popular entertainment. Producers hired actors and crew and sold tickets to the event. Ticket revenue was enough to cover costs.

Then movies came in and they became popular entertainment. Then came radio, television, home video, streaming. Live theater was pushed into ...

As an audience member, my preferences are

Improv > sketch > standup

But the general public is more

Standup > sketch > improv


The truth about improv that many proponents don’t want to admit is that is essentially a niche entertainment, like ballet. Those of us who love it, love it. But most ...

Hold on. Do any other theaters in town have this policy? I always pay for a ticket at any place other than TNM.

Share it with your non-improv friends:

http://splitsider.com/2014/04/improv-as ... al-advice/

It was intimidating at first; then I learned that you're lucky to be on stage with better performers and it enables you to take more risks, because they will save you from looking too bad.

As with tennis or chess you get better when the people you play with are better.

I still think Calvinball (from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes) is a great model for understanding improv games.

http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Calvinball

Of all the things I've learned about improv, the concept of game seemed the ...

I contributed to this Kickstarter project because

1) I want to support them, and it seems like a worthy endeavor
2) I'm interested to see what's in the book

I'm not sure you can learn improv from a book, though. I've never read any book about stage improv. The Austin public library, although ...

They've done brain scans of rappers when they free-style - improvise - and found temporary reduction of neural activity in the prefrontal cortex. Same with jazz musicians.

The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain where we self-monitor and edit. (This is probably a simplification, but it's ...