COVID-19 – Improv classes in the face of a global pandemic

At the start of 2020, we were set for a bumper year of improv. And then that thing with the pandemic happened. Looking back, we were luckier than most. When the government introduced hand sanitising and 1.5m social distancing on 15 March, we immediately adapted our...
ChatGPT does Improv – The Love Doctors

ChatGPT does Improv – The Love Doctors

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by the company OpenAI. Built on the text of the web and large language models, ChatGPT can hold knowledgable conversions based on the information it has been provided. Whether that knowledge is accurate is debatable. This blog post...
Mindfulness and Improvisation

Mindfulness and Improvisation

We keep an eye out for improvisation research, and once in a while the mainstream media does too. The day after our last newsletter went out in June, the ABC — the Australian one, not the U.S. one — published an interesting article on the history of sports psychology,...

Sydney Theatresports: Something Improvised This Way Comes

We here at Academy of Improvisation were lucky this past weekend to see Sydney Theatresports as the hero, with Theatresports All-Stars at the Enmore Theatre. This was a celebration of Sydney Theatresports from the 80s, 90s and 00s, featuring a selection of...
Don’t ask questions, myths and legends

Don’t ask questions, myths and legends

That old chestnut of questions in theatrical improvisation scenes has popped up a number of times over the years, and seems to be doing the rounds of our local community yet again. Like many theatrical improvisation techniques, it’s either taught wrong in early levels...
Children and improvisation

Children and improvisation

In December 2017, The Sydney Morning Herald published a story about how playful parents can prevent anxious kids. How do parents become more playful? And what does this mean for children and improvisation? Improvisors know very well. In the last 10 years, research...