Improv shows are always dif­fer­ent depend­ing on the ener­gy of the per­form­ers, the prompts they are giv­en, and the ener­gy of the audi­ence. Most of the ones I’ve seen in Welling­ton have been enter­tain­ing. Some are sub­lime and con­tain moments of pure the­atri­cal genius. The kind where the whole audi­ence holds its breathe then exhales in delight at what they are see­ing.

The typ­i­cal expec­ta­tion of improv is that it will be fun­ny but there are many vari­a­tions and struc­tures for play­ers to use. The New Zealand Improv Fes­ti­val will show­case them all.  On from 6–10 Octo­ber, the fes­ti­val will take over BATS The­atre in five fran­tic days of orig­i­nal the­atre. There are 20 shows and 20 work­shops, fea­tur­ing three com­pa­nies from Aus­tralia, two com­pa­nies from Auck­land, one from Nel­son, one from Christchurch and sev­en from Welling­ton. (The final show is New Zealand VS The World. I’m expect­ing to see sev­er­al of the Welling­ton crew fea­tured in that based on their tal­ent. Plus there are lots of them.)

Show inspi­ra­tions range from Wes Ander­son to musi­cal improv to geneal­o­gy to Orange is the new black. There’ll also be a chance to see impro­vi­sors from dif­fer­ent com­pa­nies work togeth­er plus solo per­for­mances.

If you’ve nev­er seen improv live before then this is a nice way to intro­duce your­self to it. If you have seen it, well I imag­ine you’ll already have some tick­ets. Whether there are ask-fors* or not, I promise you’ll see some­thing unique that will nev­er been seen again.

*where the per­form­ers get a sug­ges­tion or prompt from the audi­ence.