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Kayla Lorette |
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Kayla Lorette, originally from Vancouver but now living in Toronto, is redefining the possibilities for young improvisers in Canada. When she was just nineteen her long form improv group AKA was nominated for a Canadian Comedy Award, the youngest group ever to receive a nomination in any category, and the next year they were nominated again. With AKA she has been featured at several improv festivals across the country including: The Vancouver International Improv Festival and Rapid Fire Theatre's Improvaganza Festival. Since then she has gone on to win second prize in "Canada's Next Great Comedy Legend" a television series put together by Second City and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This led to a job offer from Second City Toronto and her subsequent move out east, where she also joined a number of other improv companies including: Ghost Jail Theatre, ProjectProject, Catch 23, and Impromptu Splendour. Most recently she spent a few months shooting her new television series "That's So Weird", a sketch comedy show for YTV. Kayla is so excited for her first tour outside of Canada! |
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Kurt Smeaton |
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Kurt Smeaton is a comedian and writer from Toronto, Canada. He has been improvising for 17 years working with excellent companies such as Instant Theatre (Vancouver), RapidFire (Edmonton), BadDog, Second City (Toronto), Dad's Garage (Atlanta), The Sticking Place, The Institute (London) and The Canadian Improv Games (Ottawa). Kurt has performed for 53 consecutive hours in DieNasty's Soapathon and 50 consecutive hours in London's Improvathon. He produces and performs in the popular weekly show Catch23 and the annual Tournament of Wonders.
Kurt has been featured in several television shows and commercials including a main role in the nationally broadcast sketch comedy hit The Holmes Show.
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Kevin Gillese |
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Kevin Gillese is an improviser and comedy artist from Edmonton, Alberta where he is the artistic director of Rapid Fire Theatre, home of the longest running Theatre Sports show in the world. Kevin has toured all kinds of shows across Canada, the United States, Australia and of course his beloved Europe. Last spring he was thrilled to premiere Scratch at one of the biggest comedy festivals in the world: The Melbourne International Comedy Festival. After having been with RFT for twelve years, it's safe to say that he has spent most of his adult life working as an improviser.
Kevin has also appeared in several Canadian films and television shows, one American film and a few Australian television shows. He likes to get around, so what!?!
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Arlen Konopaki |
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Arlen Konopaki im member of Rapid Fire Theatre and actor in Scratch show. He graduated from the University of Alberta with his BFA in acting. He has been improvising for 8 years with various companies and spent the last 5 seasons with Rapid Fire Theatre. Selected stage credits include: Romeo & Juliet (Free Will Players), A MidSummer Night's Dream (Theatre Prospero), Boy Groove (Synapse Theatre) and Candida (Studio Theatre). With his film company High Wire Films he has completed two independent features entitled The Greatest Love Story Ever Told and Losing Will.
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Lee White |
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Lee White started performing on the vaudeville stage at the age of 5, tap dancing and singing Rick Springfield songs, with his partner the late Sheker Migiller. At the age of ten Lee hit the streets of Budapest, basket weaving for tips. But after 3 years and the great Budapest basket fires, he was forced to flee to the sheep fields of Egypt. Hiding as a sheep he fled to his homeland Manitoba where after years of radiation therapy was awarded fanciest pantsed lad in all the land. He then used that fame to launch his acting career. After receiving poor reviews in the starring role at Rainbow Stages production of Fat Albert and the Gang he joined CRUMBS in 1997 to many peoples notice. |
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Stephen Sim |
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Stephen Sim has been performing improv and comedy as a coping mechanism all his life. Finally joining an actual troupe in 1992 and performing in actual public shows, he has not looked back since--but he says he mostly does it so as not to see the wasted life behind him. Our Stevie is a very busy Improv man. Some might call him an Improv "maniac" or even a "guru", in the Timothy Leary sense (the clinical term is Obsessive Compulsive Sponteniety Disorder. Steve is currently under court order to recieve treatment and has been on the run from the law since June of 1996.) Along with doing CRUMBS (and various other improv jam shows) he teaches improv at Prairie Theatre Exchange--has taught across Canada and in Europe--started and still runs the Winnipeg Improv Festival, AND runs the Manitoba Improv League in association with the Canadian Improv Games. Jesus eh? Stephen also has been experimenting with stand-up comedy. Which is frightening, but most say he's getting quite good at it. Stephen hopes to one day make something of himself and then look back on his life and smile. |
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Eugen Gerein |
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director, actor and trainer, living in Germany and Russia, theatre projects in Germany, Russia, Austria and Switzerland. |
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Sergey Sobolev |
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*1975 Schauspiellehrer, Regisseur und Schauspieler Schauspieler am Theater "Na Liteynom" in Sankt Petersburg Theaterprojekte in Finnland, Deutschland und Russland |
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Galina Zhdanova |
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* 1983, actress at "Na Liteynom" theatre in Saint Petersburg, theatre projects in Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Germany and Russia |
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Jacob Banigan |
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Jacob Banigan has been improvising since joining Rapid Fire Theatre of Edmonton, Canada in 1990. Serving as Artistic Director from 1995 to 2004, he continued to produce THEATRESPORTS, introduced RFT to longform improv in the show CHiMPROV, and helped the company create a reputation in the global improv community. In Edmonton he worked as an actor, musician, writer and director in various combinations in theatre, television, film and radio. Having recently moved to Austria, Jacob now works with Theater Im Bahnhof of Graz and English Lovers of Vienna. He regularly travels the globe performing and teaching improv wherever the wind blows.
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Jim Libby |
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Jim was in his first play in the 5th grade. After winning several awards for acting in school, Jim started his own production company, All You Can Eat Productions. He also started teaching acting. He acted. He directed. He made a whole lot of mistakes. He learned a whole lot. Jim then came to Austria. As an actor in Vienna, Jim quickly established himself as an "all-rounder": Stage, Film, Television, Voice-over, Music, he even did a fashion show. He helped to found the English Lovers and das urtheAter. He made some more mistakes. He learned some more. He's also spent time: laughing, drinking, singing, sunning, dancing, hoping, washing, growing, plotting, kissing, but not always professionally. Jim has taught and continues to teach in Austria and abroad. He helped to found the Re-Actors Studio, an open acting studio here in Vienna. Jim's still a busy guy. Jim's still making mistakes and learning a lot. |
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Yann van den Branden |
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Yann van den Branden is the artistic Director of Quicksilver Productions.
He likes to divide his work as an actor between playing in regular theatre and musicals on one side and television work on the other side.
Yann played during two seasons in the Belgian version of Who’s line is it anyway. Later on he even dared to host weekly a one hour live improv show on national tv. It became a very controversial live show.
In 2004 he created the Wake. An improv format that he brought to Stockholm, Seattle, Edmonton, Victoria, Ljublijana, Vienna, Berlin and Amsterdam with Quicksilver. That Yann and his Quicksilver team know how to excel in fast and funny improv, became clear in 2006 when they won the World championship of theatresports.
As an actor, Yann has played in a lot of tv series. Several years ago he started to write scripts himself. He created Booh!, a series full of crazy ghosts, that found its way to national Belgian tv. He also developed a new sitcom inspired on global warming for which he did not only write most of the 88 episodes but also played one of the main characters
With the highly praised poetical dance performance Duxtrou, Yann produced a controversial theatre play about Marc Dutroux, a Belgian serial killer. Recently he played emperor Joseph II in Peter Shafer’s award winning piece Amadeus. He loved his part in the musical TINTIN and the Prisoners of the sun where he played the double role of the butler Nestor and the Great Inca. This musical ran for almost a year in Belgium, as well as in the Netherlands.
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Yuri Kunigawa |
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Yuri is the artistic director of Impro Works (the longest-running improv theater company in Japan) and Yellow Man Group in Tokyo, Japan. As a professional actor and improvise she has worked for theatre, TV, and film for about 20 years in Japan. Her international acting career started in 1996. For her role as Sayo in Memory and Desire, a Niki Caro movie, she was awarded Best Actress in the Stockholm International Film Festival. As best foreign performer she received the New Zealand Film Award.
She studied improvisation with Keith Johnstone and Charna Halpern since 1994, has performed in Japan, USA, Canada, Germany, France, Holland, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. She was a member of the first winning team of Theatresports ™ in Tokyo, Japan. As a teacher, she created the program Business Impro Training ™ and has worked with many organizations, throughout Japan, businesses and non-profit organizations. She also worked for human services, government, health care, Schools and Universities on the use of creativity. She is the author of Impro Game, the first book about improvisation in Japan. In total she published 4 books about improvisation. Actually she is writing her fifth book focusing on Zen and Impro. |
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Shawn Kinley |
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Shawn Kinley - Loose Moose for about 23 years - specializing in physical work
From Taipei, Taiwan to Berlin, Germany, Shawn has been around the world entertaining audiences for nearly 25 years. More than a million people from 3 months to 108 years old have experienced his brand of insanity.
Scariest Experience: A VERY large woman claimed that Shawn was possessed by demons and tried to evict the demons while he worked. A court ordered was issued to keep her away... (she never did evict the demons).
Strangest Experience: That time when he woke up only to realize that the world was run by machines keeping people alive in a bio-liquid of some kind and his and your memories and experiences were created by computers. Or was that a movie??? Strange anyway.
Best Experience: While performing in the Montreal subways as a street performer, the crowd grew so large that Police were about to "detain" Shawn. As they pulled him away, the crowd moved in and one little wide eyed 6 year ran up to Shawn and hugged him. The police let Shawn go and the show continued.
„A touch of magic!“ - Cold Lake Times
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Derek Flores |
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Derek Flores - member of the Canadian team winnig the Theatresports World Cup in Germany in 2006
Derek got into comedy in the first place because he "couldn't do anything else". If he wasn't performing comedy for a living, he'd probably be in advertising. Apart from being a member of the 3 Canadians, he has been performing with the Loose Moose for many years. In 2000, some of these guys came down to Australia to show their stuff, and so, Derek performed along with the other Canadians Eric Amber, Ryan Belleville, Ken Gardener, and Dave Lawerence in "LOOSEMOOSE". It could be seen at the Athenaeum Theatre at 7pm during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
"LOOSEMOOSE" is not the only comedy project Derek has been on with fellow member of the 3 Canadians Eric Amber. Since they were in Melbourne for the 2000 Comedy Festival anyway, they also brought their "Hot Nuts and Popcorn Variety Hour" show. This show was set up as sort of a talk show, and was mainly improvised using guest comedians from the festival. This show first made an appearance at the Loose Moose's Garry Theatre in Calgary, Canada in 1998. |
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Dennis Cahill |
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Dennis Cahill - Artistic Director of Loose Moose. Keith Johnstone's original student. Improvising since the invention of the wheel...
Dennis began working with Keith Johnstone (arguably the worlds most innovative and influential figure in theatre improvisation) as a student in Keith's acting class at the University of Calgary in 1975. Two years later Keith co-created the Loose Moose Theatre Company, and Dennis was invited to be one of the founding members. In 1985 he was offered the job of ssociate Director and took responsibility for initiating, producing and directing a variety of programs, as well as regular performances with the company. In 1998 Dennis became the Artistic Director of the Loose Moose Theatre Company where he continues to perform, direct, and teach.
Since the inception of the International Improvisation School in 1989 (an annual intensive workshop series for professional performers, teachers, and directors) he have been one of the primary instructors. Through much of the 1990's he toured extensively, performing and teaching in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the United States, and throughout Canada. He has provided workshops in improvisation for people from a wide range of backgrounds, including journalism students in Helsinki, Finland, opera singers at the Banff School of Fine Arts, executives at a corporate retreat in San Antonio, Texas, and professional actors in Tokyo, Japan.
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Bronwynn Mertz |
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Bronwynn was born in the USA but grew up in Australia. She received her theatre degree from Murdoch University and since then has been working as an actress for both stage and screen, she is also an impro player/ teacher/ director, Cliniclown, voice-over artist, ect... She has lived in Vienna since 1992 where she performs in both English and German (often simultaneously!) with the English Lovers, Meet the Monster, the Vienna Theatre Project, amongst others. Since 2002 she has been a regular collaborator and participant in over 22 major international impro-theatre festival/ensembles. In 2006 she became the artistic director of the experimental company "Twisted Theater". Her greatest inspirations come from her son Zackery , her partner Roland and the love and laughter they find in life. |
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Randy Dixon |
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Randy Dixon is regarded as one of the most experienced improvisational artists. He has B.F.A. in Drama and a Master’s Degree in Mythological Studies with an emphasis in Jungian Depth Psycholog and was a member of the legendary Seattle improvisation troupe, None of the Above. In 1983, he was a founding member of Unexpected Productions and has served as the company’s Artistic Director since 1988. Randy has taught improvisational theater and acting in Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Holland, and all over the U.S. and Canada. His approach to improvisation has been influenced by his studies with the late Del Close (creator of the Harold), Paul Sills (founder of Second City), and Keith Johnstone (author of Impro and creator of TheatreSports). In addition to his work with theater professionals and the general public, he has taught workshops for various corporations. His book on Improvisation, Being Present: Spontaneous Storytelling and the Art of Improvisation was published in 2000. |
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