The Manila Improv Festival opens at the PETA Theater Center in Quezon City on March 27. The event will have over 50 groups from all over the world performing improvisational theater—that means everything is unscripted and unrehearsed. Here are five of my favorites.
1. #BROWNFAMJAM will be featuring the many different Indian improvisers based in Singapore. I got the chance to watch them at last year's Singapore Improv Festival and they were easily one of my favorite performers there. Think Bollywood matched with the unpredictable and razor sharp wit Indians are known for. Sure to be a crazy and fun show.
#BROWNFANJAM will happen on Saturday, March 30 at 2pm at the Viola Spolin Stage.
2. The Pirates of Tokyo Bay are easily the favorite foreign group of the Manila Improv Festival since they first visited in 2013. They do their research on Filipino culture and are known to even include Filipino words and phrases (like “keribels”) in their acts. They’re energetic, fun, and really good at what they do.
The Pirates of Tokyo Bay will perform on Friday, March 29 and Saturday, March 30 at 8pm at the Viola Spolin Stage
3. I'm going to cheat with this one—we have the youngest (just in college!) Manila groups performing: Crammer's Collective and Malingap Monsters will be in one show on March 29 and Schrodinger's Act (fresh high school grads) performing on March 31. Speaking of fresh grads, The Dodot Ensemble are fresh out of university graduates as well and are flying in from Israel with the support of the Israeli embassy. These groups will show that improv is possible at any age!
Malingap Monsters and Crammer's Collective perform on Friday, March 29 at 5pm at the Shaun Landry Lounge. The Dodot Ensemble performs on Saturday, March 30 at 8pm at the Viola Spolin Stage. Schrodinger's Act performs on Sunday, March 31 at at 5pm at the Shaun Landry Lounge.
Here are more stories on funny guys:
4. El Club dela Impro will be flying in from Spain just to be with us at the Manila Improv Festival. These guys are veterans and should be giving us a good taste of what European improv is like with a Spanish flair. This year's festival will actually feature a lot of Spanish speaking performers with improvisers from Colombia, Venezuela and Mexico also performing in the other shows aside from this group from Madrid.
El Club dela Impro will be performing at 8pm on March 27 at the Viola Spolin Stage.
5. SPIT of course is the granddaddy of the different improv groups in Manila today. With over 18 years of experience making things up on stage, SPIT runs shows that are deliriously funny, smart, irreverent and sometimes even poignant. We are doing musical improv this year and we are excited to perform even as we take care of producing the festival with Third World Improv.
SPIT performs at 8pm on March 27 and at 8pm on March 29 at the Viola Spolin Stage.
Here’s the complete schedule of performances, talks, and workshops:
Tickets for the Manila Improv Festival are available online at Ticket2Me.Net or at the PETA Theater Center. All performance spaces are within the PETA Theater Center.
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