In-Person: STORY Intensive with Rebecca Stockley

Ft. Mason - BATS Annex Class Time/Dates: April 20 & 21 // Saturday & Sunday 10:00am - 5:00pm PST Schedule: 2 sessions Class length: 14 hours total Class size: 14 students maximum Prerequisite: F2 or equivalent experience Tuition: $229 My bias is that story is what makes improvisation exceptional. Come together and let’s create some amazing improvisation! We will co-create stories throughout this course. We'll experiment with interactive story games, play scenarios with a narrator, and investigate various tale formats. You'll learn how to improvise story-driven scenes on the spot and contribute to the creation of a multitude of stories. Workshop purpose: Bring story to your scenes with confidence. Keith Johnstone in IMPRO wrote, ""Once you decide to ignore content, you can concentrate on structure and learn exactly what a narrative is."" Suggested viewing: Pulp Playhouse, a narrated improv style that can be seen at BATS Improv 8PM Fridays in April.

In-Person: The Time Machine: An Improv Intensive with Dave Dennison

Ft. Mason - BATS Annex and Bayfront Theatre

Class Time/Dates: 6:00pm-10:00pm on Friday, 10:00am-5:00pm on Saturday and Sunday // April 26, 27, 28 Schedule: 3 sessions Class size: 12 students maximum Prerequisite: Foundation 4 or instructor approval. Email bats@improv.org for the code. Tuition: $299 Description: Time is an underexplored facet of improv. Improvisers spend a great deal of effort talking, a lesser amount embodying the characters, an even lesser amount engaging the imagined location in which the scene takes place. How often do we make the passage of time seem real? When we order a drink, pour a glass of water, tie our shoes or open a letter, how long do these actions take and how much do we give them? Ironically, though a key principle of improv is being in the moment, we’re often detached from time. In my experience, when improvisers move at the same pace as actual humans, the scenes they do are surprising to the improvisers and engaging to the audience. In the first part of this 3 day intensive, we will focus on scenework that honors the reality of time; slowing down and noticing what bubbles up when we are immersed in an imaginary world that moves at the same pace as reality. In the second part of the intensive we will look at multi-scene stories that are told out of sequence, and what is inferred when we consciously leave gaps in time for the audience to fill in. The intensive is open to all students who have completed Foundation 4 (or equivalent).

In-Person Foundation Flashback for Advanced Improvisers w/Basel Al-Naffouri

Ft. Mason - Bayfront Theatre Class Date/Time: Wednesdays 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM PST // May 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, June 5 Schedule: 6 weeks Class Size: 12 students maximum Prerequisite: F6 or equivalent. *Email bats@improv.org for the access code and other eligibility questions* Tuition: $349 Experienced improvisers realize that the most advanced improv skills are actually the basics taught in the beginning courses but viewed through the lens of experience. The Foundation Flashback is designed for improvisers who have completed the foundation class series (or who have equivalent experience) who want to further develop their skills without retaking each foundation class. This course gives students the opportunity to dive deeper into topics like characters, emotional groundedness, environments, space object work, narratives, and scene structure as well as skills including listening, saying yes, and supporting your scene partners. And in this class, you'll be bringing your own experiences and perspectives from playing and performing while working with other students at your level. In this class, we will look at how we can improvise from the lens of relationship and acting. How those can propel our choices and allow us to create more dynamic scenes.

In-Person: Shakespeare Intensive with Brian Lohmann

Ft. Mason - BATS Annex and Bayfront Theatre

Class Time/Dates: 6:00pm-10:00pm on Friday, 10:00am-5:00pm on Saturday and Sunday // May 17, 18, 19 Schedule: 3 sessions Class size: 12 students maximum Prerequisite: Foundation 5 or instructor approval. Email bats@improv.org for the code. Tuition: $324 Description: What? Woulds’t thou seek to speak as though the Bard had cozened thine own tongue? Then get thee to a funnery. Three days thou wilt be party to the ins and outs of improvising Shakespeare; and like unto a party thou wilt giggle, nay guffaw, nay strain thy spleen while understanding what the heck makes Shakespeare playable, sayable, relevant today-able. To wit we shall: Share our methods for exploring Shakespeare, then employ those methods to the fly-by-the seat of your pants nature of Elizabethan theater. (His actors had to improvise!) When the hubbub’s done: You will be able to get on stage and speak the speech as it doth announce itself to you – spontaneously – with poetry and power. You will play big characters: clowns, rogues, braggarts, queens, witches, heroes and villains. There will be chases and physical comedy, space object sword fights and maybe a dance around a fairy ring, or two. Art thou a tremble at the notion? Trust that after a few “thees” and “thous,” Shakespeare can be fun to improvise. So, why not “screw your courage to the sticking place” and give it a go. All the world’s a stage. Jump on! Available for students who have completed F5, or with consent of the instructor.

In-Person: Noir Intensive with Brian Lohmann

Ft. Mason - BATS Annex Class Time/Dates: June 29 & 30 // Saturday & Sunday 10:00am - 5:00pm PST Schedule: 2 sessions Class length: 14 hours total Class size: 14 students maximum Prerequisite: F4 or equivalent experience Tuition: $229 Okay, Keyes, yeah, I’m gonna do it. I’m going to teach an intensive in Noir. Maybe it’s Fate. I’ve been obsessed with Noir since I saw “The Big Sleep,” at Harrington’s bar with my dad when I was an anklebiter. Later, I won awards for directing improvised Noir. Big deal, right? That and a nickel will get me another nickel. I know what you’re going to say, Keyes, it’s too pat, too cliché, too overdone. That’s the play for suckers. I’m too smart for that, Keyes, and I think you are too. You want an intensive that plays with heightened style and takes risks. Stylized staging with techniques with slow motion shoot outs, tricks like split screen and multiple versions of past narrative – Rashomon style; stylized tempo so that Improvised Noir is oneric, dreamlike; stylized language like the twists and the bullyboys use. Oh, we’ll look at the classics, we’d be saps not to. What about the risk? The risk involves you. You being your most glamourous and dangerous onstage. Playing for keepsies. Movement, intensity, sizzle. It’s all that, and more, Keyes. I wish you could be there. Be seeing you.

In-Person: Screwball Comedy Intensive with Brian Lohmann

Ft. Mason - BATS Annex and Bayfront Theatre

Class Time/Dates: 6:00pm-10:00pm on Friday, 10:00am-5:00pm on Saturday and Sunday // July 26, 27, 28 Schedule: 3 sessions Class size: 12 students maximum Prerequisite: Foundation 4 or instructor approval. Email bats@improv.org for the code. Tuition: $299 “You drive me crazy! But…I love you.” Screwball is a RomCom that had too much coffee and not enough sleep. The characters make bad decisions, try to outwit one another, are fierce and misinformed and are clumsy at the very moment they imagine themselves graceful. It’s a hot mess. BUT it is a wonderful cauldron for comedy. Using the classic films from the 1930s as inspiration we will create big, gloriously kooky characters and practice the comic rhythms and physical synergy that make this style cook!