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BATS Improv
{{Primary sources, date=January 2008 BATS Improv (formerly known as "Bay Area Theatresports") is a non-profit improvisational theatre company in San Francisco. Founded in 1986, their unique style of acting-based improvisational theatre is well known in improv circles around the world. BATS is the largest improvisational theatre company and school in Northern California. BATS takes its inspiration from the work of Theatresports creator Keith Johnstone and from San Francisco's own tradition of experimental improvisation. BATS is known for the quality, depth, scope and variety of its improvisational theatre programming. Since 1986, BATS helped create and define a unique San Francisco style of long-form improvisation—a single-story 2-hour show, complete with intermission—which is distinct from improv seen in much of the rest of the country. BATS is in residence at the 200-seat Bayfront Theater at historic Fort Mason Center in San Francisco and performs and offers classes year r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Improvisational Theatre
Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv or impro in British English, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, action, story, and characters are created collaboratively by the players as the improvisation unfolds in present time, without use of an already prepared, written Play (theatre), script. Improvisational theatre exists in performance as a range of styles of improvisational comedy as well as some non-comedic theatrical performances. It is sometimes used in film and television, both to develop characters and scripts and occasionally as part of the final product. Improvisational techniques are often used extensively in drama programs to train actors for stage, film, and television and can be an important part of the rehearsal process. However, the skills and processes of improvisation are also used outside the conte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatresports
Theatresports is a form of improvisational theatre, which uses the format of a competition for dramatic effect. Opposing teams can perform scenes based on audience suggestions, with ratings by the audience or by a panel of judges. Developed by director Keith Johnstone in Calgary, Alberta, in 1977, the concept of Theatresports originated in Johnstone's observations of techniques used in professional wrestling to generate heat, or audience reaction. Derivatives ComedySportz, started in 1984 in Milwaukee, WI, tends to emphasise the sports competition format more than Theatresports, for example by having a referee who awards points and administers fouls. The Australian shows '' Thank God You're Here'' and ''TheatreGames LIVE'' follow a similar format to these shows. New York City's Face Off Unlimited has also adapted the concept to numerous productions. Two similar formats, Ligue nationale d'improvisation and Canadian Improv Games both also officially debuted in 1977 in Quebec an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keith Johnstone
Donald Keith Johnstone (21 February 1933 – 11 March 2023) was a British-Canadian educator and theatre director. A pioneer of improvisational theatre, he was best known for inventing the ''Impro System'', part of which are the Theatresports. He was also an educator, playwright, actor and theatre director. Life Donald Keith Johnstone was born in 1933 in Brixham, Devon, England. He grew up hating school, finding that it blunted his imagination and made him feel self-conscious and shy. After attending St Luke's College Exeter, he taught at a working-class school in Battersea, London in the early 1950s, before being commissioned to write a play by the Royal Court Theatre in 1956. He subsequently became a play-reader, director and drama teacher there, where he chose to reverse all that his teachers had told him in an attempt to create more spontaneous actors. From 1973 to 1975 he was a professor at Queens University in Kingston Ontario Canada. His play Shot By An Elk was first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Mason Center
Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California is a former United States Army post located in the northern Marina District, San Francisco, California, Marina District, alongside San Francisco Bay. Fort Mason served as an Army post for more than 100 years, initially as a Seacoast defense in the United States, coastal defense site and subsequently as a military port facility. During World War II, it was the principal port for the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, Pacific campaign. Fort Mason originated as a coastal defense site during the American Civil War. The nucleus of the property was owned by John C. Frémont and disputes over compensation by the United States continued into 1968. In 1882 the defenses were named for Richard Barnes Mason, a military governor before statehood. Fort Mason became the headquarters for an Army command that included California and the Hawaiian Islands from 1904 to 1907. In 1912 the Army began building a port facility with piers and warehouses to be a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of 2024, San Francisco is the List of California cities by population, fourth-most populous city in the U.S. state of California and the List of United States cities by population, 17th-most populous in the United States. San Francisco has a land area of at the upper end of the San Francisco Peninsula and is the County statistics of the United States, fifth-most densely populated U.S. county. Among U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2023. San Francisco anchors the Metropolitan statistical area#United States, 13th-most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S., with almost 4.6 million residents in 2023. The larger San Francisco Bay Area ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greg Proops
Gregory Everett Proops (born October 3, 1959) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and television host. He is widely known for his work on the British and American versions of '' Whose Line Is It Anyway?''. He has also voiced the titular character on the American version of '' Bob the Builder: Project: Build It'' in series 10 to 14. Early life Proops was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in San Carlos, California, a suburb south of San Francisco, attending San Carlos High School. He attended the College of San Mateo and spearheaded the comedy duo "Proops & Brakeman". Later, he took courses in improvisation and acting at San Francisco State University, though he never finished college. Career Improv comedy After college, he joined an improv group with Mike McShane. Both Proops and McShane impressed producers Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson, who put them on their show, '' Whose Line Is It Anyway?''. He frequently instigated jokes concerning various idiosyncrasies an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masi Oka
is a Japanese actor, producer, and digital effects artist who became widely known for starring in NBC's '' Heroes'' as Hiro Nakamura, for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, and in CBS's '' Hawaii Five-0'' as Doctor Max Bergman. Early life Oka was born in Tokyo, Japan, to Setsuko Oka. His parents divorced when he was one month old; he was raised in a single parent family and has never met his father. He was six years old when he and his mother moved to Los Angeles from Japan. At age eight, he appeared on the CBS-TV game show '' Child's Play''. In 1987, a 12-year-old Oka was featured as one of several children on the cover of ''Time'' magazine, for the article "Those Asian-American Whiz Kids." Though he was not featured in the article itself, he was acquainted with the photographer who conducted the shoot. In 1988, he placed fourth in the California state MATHCOUNTS competition and was one of the four students ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerri Lawlor
Gerri Lee Lawlor (May 16, 1969 – January 28, 2019) was an American actress, voice actress and homeless advocate. She was the co-creator, along with Marc Gimbel and Stephen Kearin, of the fictitious Simlish language used in ''The Sims''. Lawlor was the voice of numerous Sims in ''The Sims'', '' The Sims Livin' Large'', '' The Sims: House Party'', '' The Sims Makin' Magic'', ''The Sims 2'', '' The Sims Life Stories'', '' The Sims: Superstar'', and ''SimCity 4''. Lawlor played the "Vanna White" hostess in the 3DO game ''Twisted''. In her spare time, Lawlor was a homeless advocate. In the #BeRobin campaign of 2014, Lawlor performed improvised music and comedy on the street to raise money for the homeless with Margaret Cho. Some of those performances appeared in the 2016 documentary ''#BeRobin The Movie'' by Kurt Weitzmann. Lawlor starred as Elizabeth Goodman in the deconstructive comedic film '' Suckerfish'' in 1999. She was the voice of "The Bully" in the Annie Award-winning ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Hall (actor)
William Hall is an American actor, director, trainer and mask maker in San Francisco, California. He is the editor of ''The Playbook, Improv Games for Performers''. Hall first became involved in acting when he took a drama class while attending Maggie L. Walker High School in Richmond, Virginia. He went on to obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from Boston University, where he was classmates with Geena Davis. After graduation, Hall came to San Francisco to pursue theater. He has appeared in film and television including '' The Right Stuff'', '' Twisted'', ''Howard the Duck'' and ''Midnight Caller''. He was one of the Nazis in the final ark scene in ''Raiders of the Lost Ark''. Hall is one of the founding members of BATS Improv, an improvisational theatre Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv or impro in British English, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted, created spontan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
True Fiction Magazine
True most commonly refers to truth, the state of being in congruence with fact or reality. True may also refer to: Places * True, West Virginia, an unincorporated community in the United States * True, Wisconsin, a town in the United States * True, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland People * True (singer) (stylized as TRUE), the stage name of Japanese singer Miho Karasawa * True (surname) * True O'Brien (born 1994), an American model and actress Arts, entertainment, and media Music Albums * ''True'' (Avicii album), 2013 * ''True'' (Jon Anderson album), 2024 * ''True'' (L'Arc-en-Ciel album), 1996 * ''True'' (Mika Nakashima album), 2002 * ''True'' (Roy Montgomery and Chris Heaphy album), 1999 * ''True'' (Spandau Ballet album) or the title song (see below), 1983 * ''True'' (TrinityRoots album) or the title song, 2001 * ''True'' (TRU album), 1995 * ''True'' (EP), by Solange Knowles, 2012 Songs * "True" (Brandy song), 2008 * "True" (Concrete Blonde song), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
3 FOR ALL
3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious and cultural significance in many societies. Evolution of the Arabic digit The use of three lines to denote the number 3 occurred in many writing systems, including some (like Roman and Chinese numerals) that are still in use. That was also the original representation of 3 in the Brahmic (Indian) numerical notation, its earliest forms aligned vertically. However, during the Gupta Empire the sign was modified by the addition of a curve on each line. The Nāgarī script rotated the lines clockwise, so they appeared horizontally, and ended each line with a short downward stroke on the right. In cursive script, the three strokes were eventually connected to form a glyph resembling a with an additional stroke at the bottom: ३. The Indian digits spread to the Caliphate in the 9th c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fratelli Bologna
Fratelli Bologna is an American business theater company based in San Francisco. The group brings their theater skills to the business world through engaging trade show presentations, creativity training, improv training, meeting facilitation and theatrical interventions during conferences. Fratelli Bologna combines scripted material, original music, improvisation, and dramatic visual imagery to convey complex messages to a wide range of audiences including the leaders of major corporations in the United States and Europe. Clients include Dow Corning Corporation, Lucent Technologies (now Alcatel-Lucent), CHRISTUS Health., Ernst & Young’s Center for Business Innovation, Round Table Pizza, and Disneyland. They won the Drama-Logue Award for best ensemble in 1987. History In 1979 a group of ten men and women performed the Italian masked comedies of the Commedia dell'Arte on the main stage of the Renaissance Pleasure Fair in Novato, California. Called La Famiglia Bologna (the Bolo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
