We are pleased to offer workshops from Joe Bill, Susan Messing, and other improv experts. This year Joe Bill will teach 4-hour intensive workshops on Friday August 20 and Saturday August 21. Susan Messing will teach 4-hour intensive workshops on Saturday August 21 and Sunday August 22. In addition, other improvisers from around the country will teach additional workshops. All in all, improvisers can leave Improv Festival Oklahoma with 15 hours of improv workshops under their belts. Keep checking back for updated workshop information.
For a list of what we're offering and registration instructions, a workshop schedule is available.
A Red Pass, which gets you into all workshops, will be available until July 31 for the price of $120. On August 1, individual classes will go on sale and Red Passes will become $150.
Use the following link to pay now via Paypal or email us for details on how to pay by check. A $3 service fee is added to all online purchases.
About the Instructors
Susan Messing, a NJ native and graduate of Northwestern University’s Theatre School, is an alumnus of the iO, Second City’s Mainstage, and a founding member of the infamous Annoyance Theatre. She continues to teach and perform improvisational comedy @ iO, The Annoyance, Second City, and DePaul University. Her standup act with her puppet, Jolly, was featured at the HBO/US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, and on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and NBC’s Late Fridays, and her most impressive bit movie role was as a bad stripper in a halo brace in Let’s Go to Prison! Susan has been an improviser and comedian for over twenty four years. Nice things said about Susan include Chicago Magazine calling her “Funniest Woman in Chicago,” Chicago Reader naming her “Best Improviser in Chicago,” and recipient of CIF 2010 “Improviser of the Year.” You can see her f@&$ around in her critically-acclaimed show, Messing with a Friend, every Thursday @ The Annoyance, now in its 4th year.
Joe Bill is widely regarded as one of the best Teachers of Scenic and Comedic Improvisation in America today. He first encountered Improvisation in 1977, when he learned some basic games for performance in his group at Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis, IN. By 1990 Joe had performed professionally with 5 different Sketch Comedy and Improv groups, studied with Del Close at Improv Olympic, and with Martin DeMaat, Michael Gellman, Bernie Sahlins and others before graduating from The Second City Training Center, Co-founded The Annoyance Theater (all in Chicago), and was making his living as a Nationally Touring Stand Up Comedian. It was also 1990 when his passion for teaching Improvisation kicked into high gear, and a unique approach to Improvised Scene and Character began to be articulated by a number of teachers at Chicago’s Annoyance Theater, lead by the visionary Artistic Director of Annoyance, Mick Napier.
Since then Joe and Mark Sutton (his partner in the Nationally Touring Improvised Production, BASSPROV), have evolved the Annoyance approach into POWER IMPROV, which they both have been teaching all over the U.S., Canada and Europe, at Festivals, Theaters and Universities since 2000. Joe has performed, coached, directed and innovated Improv Structure with a vast number of successful groups including The Screw Puppies at Annoyance, Georgia Pacific at iO Chicago, with whom he developed The Bat, The Throwdown at Donny’s Skybox at Second City and The Playground and The Scramble which he has taught and directed in 9 cities in the U.S. using performers from a mix of Theaters and Groups in each city. Joe has taught and or performed at every major Improv Festival in The United States, and in addition to BASSPROV, he also tours and performs with Minneapolis Improv Mastermind Jill Bernard in their 2 person show, SCRAM!, which features 3 different 2 person scenes that happen at the same time.
Joe currently teaches and does corporate training at iO Chicago, is an Artistic Associate for The Chicago Improv Festival, and acts as an Artistic Adviser for a number of Improvisation and Comedy Theaters all over the U.S. and Canada.
Tyler Bryce has been teaching and performing improv for the last twenty years all over the continent. While directing ComedySportz Austin from 1995-2000, Tyler developed a three-level improv workshop system in conjunction with the Zachary Scott Theatre Center that trained hundreds of students in the art of improv.
In 2001, Tyler moved to NYC. He studied improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater (UCB) and the People's Improv Theater (PIT). He performed with New York's Improv Asylum, National Comedy Theater and ComedySportz. He taught improv public and corporate workshops for National Comedy Theatre.
Since moving to Oklahoma to attend college in 2006, Tyler directed both Red Dirt Improv and O.U. Improv! He helped coordinate both the first and second Improv Festival Oklahoma. He also teaches public workshops through the IAO Gallery in OKC.
Happy corporate clients include Dell, 3M, Hewlett Packard, The Texas State Comptroller, Pfizer, and The Oklahoma Blood Institute. Tyler has studied improv with various important people, including Mick Napier, Joe Bill, Susan Messing, Armando Diaz, Ali Farahnakian, Les McGehee, Gary Austin, Kurt Braunohler, Asaf Ronen, Chet Hardwick, and Del Close.
Amanda Austin is co-owner/director of Megaphone Comedy, the parent company of the three nerve centers for training in the south: Dallas Comedy House (Dallas), The New Movement Theater (Austin), and a burgeoning training center and venue in New Orleans. She's the director of the Dallas Comedy House training center where she is an instructor for all five levels of the improv program as well as the writing program. She recently co-produced the Dallas Comedy Festival in March of 2010 at the Dallas Comedy House. She currently coaches DCH house troupe Sweater Off Dead and performs with The Megaphone Show, Pimp My Life, Manick, and the Megaphone Touring Company. She has studied at KD Studios (Dallas) The Second City, Los Angeles, and with instructors from IO (Chicago) The PIT (NYC), The New Movement (Austin), The Annoyance (Chicago). Amanda holds a bachelor of Science in Journalism and Minor in Business from Texas A&M University. She is represented by the Kim Dawson Agency.
Tim Marks is the head instructor of the KC Improv Training Center in Kansas City. A co-director of Improv-Abilities, he has improvised since 2000 and he's been a director and coach since 2004. He has been active in other troupes as well, including his two-man project Screenplayas, and the ill-conceived New York City Pigeon Crew. He has performed in the improv festivals in Chicago, the Twin Cities, Dallas, and very soon, Oklahoma.
Shane McClure is an actor, director and theatre artist. He is a founding member of the long-running group Everybody and their Dog. He first did performance improvisation as a member of the Touring Company for The Comedy Workshop in Houston in the early eighties. Shane was an Adjunct instructor at University of Central Oklahoma teaching Improv 2000-2008 and attended the Chicago Improv Festival in 2001 and 2004, particitpating in workshops with Mick Napier, Joe Bill, Susan Messing, and many others. He helped create and performed in the Two By Four Productions Improv show for an Oklahoma area Tour in 1998.
Sue Ellen Reiman also is a founding member of EATDog, attended the same festivals as Shane, and is now in her 15th year of teaching improv at UCO. She is also a member of the MiDolls improv group.
Clint and Buck Vrazel are actors, comedians, rappers, and ten-year veteran improv actors, directors, and instructors. The brothers are co-creators and members of long-form troupes The Ones Your Mother Warned You About, Villain: The Musical, The Closers (improvised David Mamet) and the two-man/one-DNA show Twinprov.
Twinprov, with accompaniment and original beats by musical improviser Stephanie Bidelspach, performs original hybrid improv/sketch/hip-hop/stand-up forms such as the Doppelgangsta improvised rap concert and the Rap-sody hip-hop Harold. Twinprov has appeared in front of thousands at movie premieres in the metro to perform their original movie raps, including their YouTube hit, “Put Your Fangs In It,” based on the Twilight series, opened for national nerdcore legend MC Frontalot, and is a Top 5 finalist for the OK Gazette's Best Comedy Group in 2010.
Former founding members of Red Dirt and Obviously Unrehearsed Improv, the Vrazels have performed at festivals and theaters from Austin, Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans, Tulsa, and Kansas City, and can be seen hosting and performing almost every saturday night at the on-going OKC Improv showcase.
In addition to teaching ongoing beginner, advanced, and custom improv classes through OKC Improv,The Vrazel bros have taught improv, rap, and musical comedy workshops to corporate groups, school students, improv professionals, libraries, colleges, and people in the community from age 5 to 85.
James Murray has been performing in improv shows for ten years. He started in college with O.U. Improv! and since 2007 he has cofounded and performed with Oklahoma City based troupe Red Dirt Improv. He has performed all over Oklahoma, as well as Chicago, Dallas, and Austin. He has helped coordinate and produce the first and second annual Improv Festival Oklahoma. When he isn't improvising, he is an education attorney in Oklahoma City.