• STORY!

story

Improvise an entire play/movie from just one suggestion! 9 week course plus show.

Improvise exciting and captivating long-form multi-scene adventures with heroes, heroines, villains, relationships, action sequences, cliff hanging moments of suspense, relationships we care about, improvised special effects, musical underscoring and most of all lots of fun!

We’ll be looking at narrative structure, cause & effect, what happens next, the circle of expectation, character archetypes, character objectives, making it matter, love and hope, relationships, heroes and villains, story spine, hero’s journey, characters we care about going through emotional change, fun edits, exploring different genres and more!

Character, relationships, scenes, game and emotions are all important in improv, and it’s when these skills are all put together in harmony with STORY that improv really goes to another dimension.

By the end you’ll be able to improvise an entire play/movie as part of a team from just one suggestion!

available dates

Dates: 

Every Saturday morning for 9 weeks from Saturday 1st June 2024 with Chris Mead, plus show on Saturday 3rd August 2024. BOOK

Every Wednesday evening for 9 weeks from Wednesday 29th May 2024 with Steve Roe, plus show on Saturday 27th July 2024. SOLD OUT

Time: 7pm – 9pm (Wednesday course), 11am – 1pm (Saturday course).

Teachers: Steve Roe (Wednesday course), Chris Mead (Saturday course).

Price: £250. Either payable all at once or £100 at time of booking and £150 when the course starts.

Venue: Theatre Delicatessen Studios, 107 Leadenhall Street, EC3A 4AF.

Tubes: Bank, Liverpool Street, Fenchurch Street, Aldgate.

Ages: 18+

This is an advanced course designed for people with previous long-form improv experience. You must have completed levels 1-4 before signing up for this course.

teacher Steve Roe

Steve Roe is the Director and Co-founder of Hoopla and has been teaching improv for over 14 years.

Steve creates a friendly, fun & supportive atmosphere in workshops where people are free to play and be themselves.

Steve has experience of teaching beginners, experienced improvisers, stand ups, drama school students and professional actors.

He has also taught improv at East 15 Drama School, Imperial College London and Oxford University, and to various corporate clients including Google, Facebook, Comedy Central, Accenture, Apple, BBC and ITV.

In 2010 Steve founded the UK’s first ever improvised comedy club at The Miller in London Bridge, helping to create a vibrant community of performers and audience.

Hoopla’s Improv Comedy Club was recently recommended by Time Out, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian, The Evening Standard and The Londonist.

Steve has studied improv with Keith Johnstone, Charna Halpern from IO, Patti Styles from Improv Melbourne, Shawn Kinley from Loose Moose, The Annoyance, The Upright Citizens Brigade, Fooling with Jonathan Kay and Clown with Mick Barnfather.

Steve regularly hosts Hoopla’s nights at The Miller, as well as performing, producing and directing various groups across the London improv scene. Steve also produces and directs Hoopla’s house team programme.

He continues to support countless other shows that have popped up from Hoopla workshops and is influential in growing the UK’s improv scene.

teacher Chris Mead

Chris improvises with sci-fi group Project2. He is co-founder and Director of The Unmade Theatre Company, specialising in improvised theatre. He previously performed with the award winning Maydays.

Chris is also co-founder of The International Improv Station, an online international community of experienced improvisers.

Chris has studied improv internationally at iO Chicago, The Annoyance Theatre Chicago and The Hideout in Austin, Texas.

He has performed at various improv festivals internationally including Austin Texas, Norway, Edinburgh, Dublin, Sweden and Barcelona.

Chris studied theatre at Royal Holloway College and University of London.

Chris is one of the Artistic Directors of The Nursery Theatre.

He also directs many of Hoopla’s leading house teams.

He also hosts YesBot, a podcast dedicated to the theory and craft of improv (but with added exploding robots) featuring leading performers from around the world.

faqs

course content

Each workshop consists of some fun back to basics warm ups, then some awesome exercises on narrative, scene work and character skills, followed by putting it together into epic improvised movies/plays each week.

Topics over the course include a selection from the list below. We adjust the exact topics from course to course as we adapt to each group.

  • The circle of expectation and being obvious.
  • Building a captivating world of location, characters and relationships.
  • Playing relationships and emotions to create stories.
  • Creating a protagonist we care about.
  • What happens next.
  • Cause & effect and the power of the word “because”.
  • Reincorporating and justifying story elements.
  • Narrative structures including Love Hope Death, Story Spine, Fairytale and Hero’s Journey.
  • Big themes. Love! Hope! Death! Rebirth! Good vs Evil!
  • Character archetypes including heroes, mentors, heralds, friends and villains.
  • Objectives and making it matter.
  • Characters and relationships we care about going through emotional change.
  • Physical improv including chase scenes, fight scenes and lots of action.
  • Hoopla fun cards to encourage play.
  • Improvised CGI!
  • Musical underscoring to inspire emotion.
  • Focus and staging.
  • Editing multiple scenes together.
  • Different genres to inspire great stories.

We adjust the exact topics from course to course as we adapt to each group.

Most of all having loads of fun improvising exciting plays/movies from scratch!