By Jillian Follert
It’s not every day you find hundreds of audience members screaming, chanting and stomping at the NAC, a venue normally reserved for quiet ballets and refined operas.
It’s also not every day the National Arts Centre hosts the Canadian Improv Games.
“Imagine theatre, a rock concert and a sporting event all rolled into one,” says Al Connors, Ottawa’s regional director for the games. “It’s just insane.”
For those unacquainted with improv, it’s a unique form of theatre that forgoes scripts and rehearsed scenes. Instead, actors spontaneously create dialogue and activity as they perform. Audience members get in on the action by cheering and shouting suggestions.
“It’s very interactive and energetic and loud, we’ve even had noise complaints in past years,” says Connors.
Actors pretend to be inanimate objects and pieces of scenery in addition to portraying characters and acting out scenarios.
Over the past few years improv has grown in popularity as more high schools have started teams and has also gained exposure through television shows like Whose Line is it Anyway?
For young people who love improv, the Canadian Improv Games are about as big as it gets. The annual competition is the largest youth theatre event in the country, with more than 1,000 students participating this year.
Following regional competitions in cities across the country, the national championships will take place at the NAC, with semi finals from April 9 -12 and a final competition on April 13.
Canterbury high school, Nepean high school and Holy Trinity high school scored the highest in Ottawa’s regional championships on March 24, and will move on to the Games.
The structured contest requires students to compete in teams of eight, competing in four out of five available events, which are story, style, character, theme and life. Each event challenges specific improv skills.
Connors says these competitions are as fun for the audience as they are for the actors.
“People love to come because they never know what to expect,” he says. “The Ottawa regionals at the NAC sold out three weeks in advance.”
Jane Moore, a retired creative writing teacher from Canterbury has been coaching the school’s improv team since 1987, and says the students are excited to be advancing to the championships. “The students were just so thrilled, one of them was in tears,” she says.
Moore says improv is popular among students because it offers an element of danger.
“Teenagers love it because it’s scary to put yourself out there, and overcoming that helps you grow as a person,” she explains.
As more schools start improv teams and competitions like the games become bigger and better, Moore says a higher level of professionalism is required of the participants.
“There is the misconception that because improv is spontaneous it doesn’t take skill and practice to do,” she says. “But it takes self-discipline and a lot of time. Our team has put in over 300 hours this year.”
Kathleen Klassen agrees. She has been coaching Lisgar Collegiate’s team for seven years. She says before this year’s regional championships they were rehearsing up to 12 hours a day.
“Lisgar takes this very seriously. The team is hardcore.”
In addition to helping strengthen basic drama abilities like stage presence and role playing, Klassen says improv teaches lessons like communication and teamwork.
“By depending on each other and working towards a common goal there is a synergy created, a kind of telepathy where they can read each other’s minds.”
Although Lisgar’s team placed fifth at the regionals, it didn’t qualify for the national competition this year.
“It’s disappointing because they worked so hard, but all the teams were fantastic so it could have gone to anyone,” says Klassen. “They still had a great time and that’s what it’s all about.”