BBIF 2005 Workshops
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Homepage About LTT! * Members BBIF 2007 Recent Events * Upcoming Shows * Improvathon Media >History >Alumni >Games >Recent Changes Are you a member? Edit the site! |
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Scott Abrams - ImprovJacksonville
Scott has been the director of ImprovJacksonville for over four years, specializing in short-form and competitive improv, sketch comedy, and corporate training. ImprovJacksonville’s most recent success was the opening of The ImprovJacksonville Comedy Theatre in the heart of Downtown Jacksonville, Florida. Originally from Naples, Florida, Scott has been on stage since he was 11 years old. He has performed and directed from coast to coast in a wide variety of mediums. Live theatre to television, radio and film, leading man to voice over talent, he is most comfortable when he is on stage and has logged thousands of hours performing, under lights or on camera in front of tens of thousands of people. Scott has been with ImprovJacksonville since its inception and became its director in January 2001. As the director of ImprovJacksonville, Scott has developed “IJ Kids”, an after school program, assisted in the development of ImprovJacksonville’s corporate training and lead the comedy troupe to new heights. His precious free-time is spent working on his stage/screen plays and with his two beautiful boys and his ever-patient wife.
Bill Cochran of Choke Up
Currently a performer and director in Chicago, Bill Cochran is originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina where he was lucky enough to get involved with DSI early and often. Bill's past improv credits include ComedySportz, Improv Inferno's Chicago production of Damnation Game, and the national touring ensemble Mission IMPROVable. In Chicago, Bill now performs with his IO Harold team Sturgis, DSI's critically acclaimed two-person show Choke Up and Chicago Improv Festival's showcase ensemble Show Pony. Bill has directed UNC's CHiPs, a corporate shortform group called Improv Unlimited, taught workshops at the last Implosion Festival in Clemson, South Carolina and is a former instructor of the Dirty South Improv Training Center.
Tommy Futch of Laughing Matters
Tommy Futch is the President of Laughing Matters, an interactive entertainment company. In addition to improvisational comedy, Laughing Matters’ repertoire includes team-building, murder mysteries, game shows, scavenger hunts and school performances. Tommy's life changed dramatically in 1971 when he was injured in a car collision near Adel, Georgia. Futch was paralyzed from the waist down. Everything he knew about life was altered or no longer applied. For the next 10 years, he dabbled in school, work and self-fulfillment. In 1985, Futch took a comedy course and discovered his passion—improv comedy. He and a dozen partners soon formed Laughing Matters, an improv comedy troupe. As years passed and partners moved on, Futch became President and expanded the company’s mission. Tommy has worked alongside and coached Mitch Rouse, a Laughing Matters member from 1987 to 1991, who helped write the comedy film Without a Paddle, Joe Kelly, who begins his first full season as a writer for Saturday Night Live. And Gary Anthony Williams who is part of the cast of Jeff Foxworthy's surprise summer hit Blue Collar TV. Laughing Matters owner and executive producer Tommy Futch says he feels like a proud papa: "I can't make you famous, but you can use me as a steppingstone." For Kelly, who worked with Laughing Matters from 1993 to 1998, the troupe taught him "clean" humor. "I learned to be funny, as opposed to shocking," he said. Kelly worked on three episodes at the end of last year's SNL and got three of his skits in: a tattoo removal commercial parody, a hilarious Harry Potter takeoff where Lindsay Lohan played a suddenly buxom Hermione and a rap scene with Snoop Dogg. On any given day, you can find Tommy selling, performing and producing at corporate events throughout the South.
Topping Haggerty of The Kihckercast Project
Topping Haggerty has performed and directed improvisation for many years. She has performed her one-person improvised show, I Want to be a Pony, in New York, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Austin, and Miami. She is the director of the improv troupe The Kihckercast Project, and has directed such improv extravaganzas as Easy as Swimming the English Channel, What Men Talk About (While Women Make Us Wait), and Seeking: Sexy, Sane and Single (Personal Ad Adventures), and is currently working with Late Night Ritalin in New York City. Topping has also written and directed sketch comedy for Scrap Metal Theatre and 'Short & Funny: The Final Chapter'. She currently performs with the sketch comedy troupe The Resistance. Over the years she has performed with such improv groups as The Bastards, Cute Kids with Guns, Channel Surfing, Liquid Paper, Amnesia Wars, and many, many others. Topping’s credits also include performances in a plethora of amazingly forgettable stage plays like 'Satan Are You Out There?' and independ ent films like 'UFO Fever'. She received her BA in Drama from SFSU.
Dan Izzo of Improv Inferno
Originally from Chicago, Dan recently moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to open his very own comedy lounge, Improv Inferno. Prior to becoming the Artistic Director and founder of Improv Inferno, Dan had been improvising for over ten years. He has taught improv at Columbia College, The Second City Chicago (and Detroit) and at the Annoyance Theater. Dan has taught at the Chicago Improv Festival, at the Dirty South Improv Festival in North Carolina, and at festivals in New York and Kansas City. His directing experience includes directing "Terrorslide!" an improvised horror movie spoof, which the Chicago Reader described "as intelligent as the horror-flick and improv-comedy genres allow." He also directed "Cubicle Rats", which the Chicago Reader praised for its "uniformly excellent technique and sly, perceptive conceits."
Jon Karpinos of Choke Up
Jon Karpinos grew up in Chapel Hill, NC, where he performed with ComedySportz and the Chapel Hill Players (CHiPs) at UNC-CH. While in college he also appeared in Improv Everywhere missions and as the lesser half of Choke Up, a two-man show with Bill Cochran. In 2004 he taught at the DSI Training Center, joined house team Mister Diplomat, and coached Spherical Suicide, the theater's first-ever incubator team. Jon now lives in Chicago, where plays with DSI's The Beatbox and Show Pony, both of which appeared at this year's Chicago Improv Festival, Del Close Marathon, and Dirty South Improv Festival. Also a playwright, Jon has had work featured in the New York In'tl Fringe Festival; the Midtown Int'l Theatre Festival (NYC); the Bailiwick Director's Festival (Chicago); and World Interplay, the Int'l Festival of Young Playwrights (Queensland, Australia). He remains grateful for the chance to do this.
Jim Karwisch of JaCKPie
Jim Karwisch, founder of the JaCKPie Theatre Workshop made his move from professional acting and directing into long-form improvisation in Chicago, IL at the Improv Olympic (now called "I.O.") After his move to Atlanta he began working with troupes such as the Red Chair Theatre's Comedy Response Unit, The Position, Babies Mit Bearden, Zero Suppression, Wierd Spelled Wrong as well as starting an Atlanta training school for long-form improvisation. For five years he performed in a two man troupe called JaCKPie with Chris Pierce. Together they created JaCKPie Productions and University and produced shows at theatres all over Atlanta. You can now catch him performing with Babies Mit Bearden and teaching at the JaCKPie Theatre Workshop.
Robert Lowe - Atlanta's own Improv Guru
Robert Lowe is the author of Improvisation, Inc.: Harnessing Spontaneity to Engage People and Groups, (Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer, 2000). This book is the pioneering work in the use of Improvisational Theatre techniques for organizational development and business and professional communication. Robert is known as the Grandfather (sometimes the Godfather) of Improvisational Comedy in Atlanta having founded "The Lightside City Players" in 1983, "Comedy Atlanta" in 1985, and "The Next City Comedy Theatre" in 1988. In 1989 Robert had a significant influence in the founding of Georgia Tech's "Let's Try This" Improv Comedy movement. For nearly 20 years he has brought Improv technique, fun, and exploration to business and organizations of every size and form. His work is known in more than 20 countries, and it has been noted that either Robert, or his students, and now students of his students, have had an influence on almost every venue of Improv comedy in the Atlanta region. Mr. Lowe's public Improv Comedy Workshops have provided the inspiration and the formula for programs that have placed hundreds of non-performers on live Improv stages throughout the region.
Amber Nash - Dad's Garage
Amber Nash is a member of the improv ensemble and also acts as the Education Director at Dad's Garage Theater. Amber also performs regularly with Laughing Matters. Amber's improv training started at Whole World Theatre and she is spending the summer studying improv in Chicago with Improv Olympic and Second City.
Jochen "Je77" Rick - LTT!
Jochen "Je77" Rick has been a member of Let's Try This! since 1993. During his tenure, he has been a prolific innovator, leading the troupe in new directions. He directed two plays, Eggshell #1 and Fowl Play, created using improv techniques. Recently, he developed scenic archetypes, a plot-driven long-form improv technique. He also was one of the driving forces behind 3 Walls, No Blinds, a non-illusory participative theatre, inspired by Chicago's Neo-Futurists. For his improv work, Je77 draws heavily on theatre theory, particularly Grotowski's and Brecht's. As a mentor, Robert Lowe has remained a continuous source of inspiration, teaching him to challenge himself and further the art of improvisation.
Wes Schrader - TBD
When people ask how long he's been doing improv, Wes Schrader says the same thing everytime: "Uhm... about a day." Then he goes for half an hour on why he answered that way. (Go ahead and ask him yourself, if you've got some time to kill.) When not standing on the improv soapbox, he's been spotted on a cable improv show; at a jam session in Atlanta's new Relapse Theatre; directing and performing at LTT!; writing and directing an authentic commedia dell'arte play; starting a new Atlanta improv troupe, TBD; and even writing research papers on improv training and its effects (the toughest part is teaching the lab gerbils how to play 185). All of this sort of gives the lie to that whole "about a day" thing, but it's a metaphor, folks, and he's sticking with it.
Jonathan Wells - The Basement Theatre
Jonathan has been the director of improvisation for The Basement Theatre for almost a year now. A resident of Atlanta, GA since the young age of three, Jonathan was always encouraged to perform in one way or another by his mother Janet Wells, herself a professional actress and improvisation instructor, and his father Tom Wells, a musician and songwriter. After dabbling in improvisation and scripted theatre for many years and into his college years, Jonathan joined Let's Try This (see this page). After playing in countless shows and directing many of them, Jonathan assumed the role of Leader of LTT! for the duration of one year before moving to The Basement in 2004. Jonathan's focuses are on innovative scenework and on playing the reality of a scene to the highest and best knowledge of the players. He is studying to obtain his Masters of Education and teaches improv classes and workshops regularly.
Bob Wood - Relapse
Oib Sdoow Bob... After seven years of paying his dues at Whole World Theatre, Bob Wood left in November 2004 to found Relapse Comedy Theatre in Midtown Atlanta. He credits teacher and best friend, David Webster, creator of Whole World, as the inspiration for his style of improv– organic, free-flowing, and centered on what is truly real and what's in the heart.
If you are a director and you find that your profile simply says "Coming Soon!," please fill out and send the Director Information Mailform and send a digital photo attachment of yourself to blackbox@dramatech.org to help us get things rolling. Thank you.
