The Improv Wiki

UCB co-founder, SNL Weekend Update anchor, Parks and Recreation star, and the improv-world celebrity most responsible for keeping UCB financially alive through its 2020s restructurings.

Second City / UCB co-founder / SNL head writer / director of The Big Short, Vice, Anchorman, an improviser who became one of the most politically pointed filmmakers of his generation.

Co-founder of iO Theater and keeper of the Del Close legacy; built the institution that trained Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Stephen Colbert, and most modern longform practitioners.

Creator of the Harold and the most influential improv theorist of the 20th century, mentor to Belushi, Murray, Fey, Poehler, Colbert, Farley, Myers, and a generation of UCB founders.

UCB's flagship Sunday show, a monologist and a rotating cast of heavy-hitters, the longest-running improv show in American history.

The first improvisational theater in America, seeded Second City, Nichols & May, and every long-form tradition that followed.

San Francisco's politically savage 1960s improv company, where Del Close refined his craft and the Harold was first attempted.

Mick Napier's Chicago theater, founded 1987 as Metraform, whose 'Individually Powerful' philosophy became the explicit counter-argument to polite Yes-And improv.

Gary Austin's 1974 LA training company, the single most reliable feeder to Saturday Night Live's West Coast pipeline for 50 years.

Del Close and Charna Halpern's laboratory for long-form, the birthplace of the Harold and the pipeline that fed UCB and SNL for three decades.

Keith Johnstone's Calgary theater, where Theatresports was invented in 1978 and where improvisers from six continents trained at the International Improvisation Summer School 1988-2019.

A monologist tells true stories from an audience suggestion; the cast improvises scenes inspired by the stories, often cited as UCB's most influential imported format.

The foundational long-form improv structure, a single audience suggestion explodes into three beats of three scenes each, bookended and separated by group games.

A daisy-chain of two-person scenes, Player B carries into a new scene with C, then C with D, until the chain completes a circle back to A.

A single scene, single location, continuous real time, full show length with no external edits.

Two players perform a scene; any other player can yell 'Freeze!' at any moment, tap one out, adopt the frozen pose, and start a new scene justified by the physicality.

Two teams perform the same thème back-to-back; the audience votes which one they preferred.

Match d'impro default category, teams play a scene on the given thème with no additional constraint.

Players from both teams share the ice and improvise one scene together on a single thème.

Mick Napier's anti-rules school, take care of yourself, strong individual choice over polite agreement, reject 'Yes, And' as doctrine.

The practice of using improv principles, tools, and mindsets for non-performance purposes, business training, education, therapy, healthcare, community work.

The lineage of improv running through Compass Players, Second City, iO, and their teachers, ensemble-centered, long-form-first, Harold as core discipline.

An offer that assigns a trait, backstory, or behavior to another performer, a gift the partner accepts and plays as truth.