A still from the documentary film In the Moment, which profiles Lisgar and Canterbury high schools improv teams.
Sandra Chwialkowska joined Lisgar Collegiate’s improv club almost 10 years ago.
Now, she’s revisiting her love for high school improv with her film, In the Moment, which premieres at the ByTowne Cinema on Feb. 20.
The documentary follows six Canadian high school teams, including those of two Ottawa schools, Lisgar and Canterbury, as they make their way to the national finals for the 2007 Canadian Improv Games.
More than 3,000 teams compete for the 20 spots in the national finals.
The games involve each team doing four unscripted scenes based on audience suggestions. Judges then determine the winner based on criteria such as originality, listening to each other, and speed.
Chwialkowska says she’s had the idea for the film since she was studying film at Yale University, but one day she was talking with her friends and she says it all just clicked.
Several of her friends were professional improvisers in clubs in the United States, but none of them had ever had tried improv in high school.
“They just couldn’t get how it could exist,” she says. That’s when she says she decided to quit her job, sell her car, and make a movie.
Two years later, In the Moment is opening in three Canadian cities, starting with Ottawa. Chwialkowska edited the movie herself, so she says she had no idea if anyone else would even like what she’d done.
The trailer has been watched about 175 times since it was put up on YouTube two months ago. “It’s been validating just to see that people like it,” she says.
While it is primarily about the competition of the improv games, the film also sheds light on the lives of teenagers today through the eyes of its subjects, like Ben Farrow.
Farrow was a part of the Lisgar improv team for all of high school. He is now studying aerospace engineering at Carleton University, but still volunteers with the improv games.
He says that although he’ll always remember the roar of the thousands of audience members as he got on stage, the most rewarding thing about improv was the friends he made.
“This is like all of high school, summed up into one night,” says Farrow in the film.
Lisgar students are known for their academic performance, and now they are well-known in the world of improv as well. Lisgar’s team has reached the national level for the past six years.
Both Chwialkowska and Farrow were coached by Kathleen Klassen, the drama teacher at Lisgar who started the team in 1996 and still coaches it today.
Klassen says she does it because she loves working with a motivated group.
“No one’s twisting their arms to be here,” she says.
Klassen’s team practices for a couple hours, twice a week. She says even though winning trophies is fun, the most rewarding thing is seeing the teens’ self-confidence and leadership skills grow.
Klassen says the important thing is to just take each moment as it comes.
“Life can be fleeting,” she says. “Often we don’t take time to be in the moment and that’s what improv is all about.”