Dave Dennison
Company Member since 1998
Coach since 2004
Dave Dennison describes improvised theatre as his first love.
Dave developed the improv format Family Drama at BATS Improv, and for more than ten years it’s been an audience and player favorite. He has performed with many groups including True Fiction Magazine, Scratch Theater, Start Trekkin’, the Particulars, Hey You, the Travellers, and Secret Improv Society. From 2005 to 2008, he served as Artistic Director of BATS Improv.
In 2009 Dave co-founded Awkward Dinner Party with Lisa Rowland, and they’ve played to packed houses ever since.
Dave has appeared in several industrial videos for clients such as Cisco, NRG, Do.com, Oracle, InVisage, and Alteryx, to name a few. He’s also appeared in the short films World Record Guy, 144K, and Troubador and the feature film Security. Dave is working on a one-man show about his life growing up in Daly City.
In addition to teaching at BATS — where he has taught every class from F1 to advanced genre performance classes — Dave has taught at the Marsh, Stanford University, and the California College of the Arts, as well as for numerous corporate clients. Dave is currently working on “The Method of the Moment”: a new approach to improv that focuses on rigorous attention to the basics. In his spare time, Dave walks, and walks, and walks.
Q & A
What was your first BATS Show?
1993, probably TheatresportsTM, at the Bayfront on a Monday night
Your first improv class?
Beginning improv at BATS in 1993 with Teresa Roberts
What are your favorite formats?
Family Drama and improvised stage plays
Best moment on the BATS Stage?
Whenever the story has stopped moving forward, because the moment is too wonderful to pass up.
Any improv advice?
Repeat names. Be loud!
What are your artistic influences?
Coffee. History. Crackpot Theories.
Favorite movies?
Waiting for Guffman, Gamera vs. Guiron, Hot Rods to Hell
Why should people study improv?
People should do improv and study it, because it demands that you be present in this moment right now, reading these words that I’m typing right now.