Teaching six straight days of 6 hour long classes has addled my brain a little bit. It has been great and the people here in London are very good at this improvisation thing. If your ever in the vicinity contact Kate Hilder katejhilder@gmail.com and she can point you in the right direction for some classes, performances and practice groups. This has been my best teaching of an international workshop ever. I must be maturing well. Saturday night I performed in London's equivalent of Conundrum. Andrew Morrish and Ruth Zaporah's Action Theater influence has the improv scene positively hopping. I have one more 2 hour master class to go tonight (that will make it seven continuous days of teaching) and take off for NYC tomorrow where I will catch up with my son who I haven't seen in 19 months, some old dance friends who I haven't seen in 39 years and my nieces and nephew. I will also teach a weekend workshop, just for the fun of it.

In the beginning

This will be a place for me, my friends and unknown colleages to talk about our experiences of improvised performance theatre.

There will be insights about classes, performances, favourite moments, influential teachers and various things that each of us find valuable in the doing and watching of improvised theatre.

Back in the 70's I told one of my students that it would take many years and many people working diligently for improvisation to develop into a viable performance art form. In fact I said I would probably be dead before improvisation moved from a fringe happening to acceptance as a main stream theatrical event.

We are now into the naughties of the twenty-first century and thankfully my prophetic sense of time has proved wrong. Ruth Zaporah first my student, then my colleage, then my teacher during the 1970's, has taken improvised performance all over the world with great success in both the fringe and mainstream performing arenas. Her own teaching has inspired and developed a following of performers and teachers of what she calls Action Theater, further stimulating the growth of this form of totally improvised performance.

The Urban Dream Capsule a group of four men; Andrew Morrish, David Wells, Nick Papas and Neil Thomas who performed for 16 days 24 hours a day in the Meyer department store window won the Melbourne Arts Festival best theatrical performance for main stream theatre in 1996. They have traveled the globe doing their thing in many cities including Chicago, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and Sao Paulo.

I would love this blog to be an open meeting place for insights and ideas arising from peoples experiences with improvised performance. Tomorrow I leave for my fourth around the world teaching tour stoping off in London, New York, Santa Fe, Berkele7 and Auckland teaching a lot and performing a little bit. It is just my way of going forth and multiplying.

So stay tuned and tune in.

Al Wunder