NZ Improv Fest invites improvisors everywhere to join us in celebrating the art form we all know and love this 2-11 October, from wherever they are and wherever they're at. Join us in Wellington, or connect with us online - we may be kept apart physically by the circumstances of the world but we can always be together in creative spirit!

What's on in Wellington:

Performance Programme

Image description: a group of improvisors wearing numbered bibs lift the winner of one of the heats of All-In All-Out Improv Bout on their shoulders, clapping and smiling

We will be soliciting pitches from local companies and ensembles for one-off performances across 5 nights at BATS Theatre (5-10 October) in one of their three theatres (Random Stage, The Dome, The Studio). These could be new works you develop especially for the fest, or work you've had in your repertoire for a while and want to bring back to the stage. We'll be letting audiences know whether the work is in development or an established production, and we're excited to celebrate the local heroes of the improv scene.

We're also looking for work by more traditional theatre makers who use improvisation in the creation or delivery of their work - again, we welcome development work or remounted productions. We want to extend our celebration and connection to theatre that builds with improv, even if it's not advertised or explicitly identified as such. Let's highlight the ways scripted, devised, and improvised theatre can learn from and build on each other - we can only make each other stronger!

We hope to offer some of our BATS programme as streaming productions as well as live events, and have plans for a season pass to allow out-of-towners (including internationals!) to join us digitally across the week. This is dependant on funding and logistics.

Workshop Programme

With less national and international participants, we will hold a smaller masterclass programme for practitioners. These 3 hour workshops will run on Saturday 3, Sunday 4 and Saturday 10 October at BATS Theatre. We will solicit workshop pitches from local teachers in both improvisation and general theatre skills, and will offer development guidance for teachers looking to up-skill in festival workshop delivery, including workshop planning sessions and personal coaching/feedback on your session.

Note: Improvisors from around NZ are welcome to join us as participants, but please note our focus for programming will be on local practitioners.

Public Workshops

We'd love to offer several introductory workshops - one for teens/youth, one for adults, and one for actors looking to expand their tool kits with improvisation. These will run alongside our masterclasses.

Conference Series

A series of afternoon panels, discussions, interviews and more taking place in Wellington and online, streamed free to the improvisation community (pending fore-mentioned funding and logistics). Your input will be solicited to help us develop the programme.

Close To Your Home: Make Work Your Way!

Can't make it to Wellington but want to join us in celebrating NZ improvisation? Put your own show on! Run a panel! Hold a workshop! We'll have an online programme of events and will direct our audiences to check out what's happening in their hood as well as online content they can engage with.

Other events

We will hold a mihi whakatau (welcome) on Friday 2 October, jams and social events during the week, and a closing party the afternoon on Sunday 11 October. We'll probably also run some all-in scratch nights and opening/closing shows as appropriate 🙂 Watch this space for more!

Your questions, comments, feedback are all welcome, and we will have pitching information out there ASAP. Thanks for being with us, friends, and stay safe wherever you are!

NZ Improv Fest 2020: Close To Home