Big congrats go out to Pimprov who will be featured on the Chicago Improv Festival Main Stage for the first time this year.
Dates of the show are still TBA…we will keep everyone updated!
Archive for the ‘CIF’ Category
Congrats to the Pimps
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009Cornwallis at CIF
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008CIC house team Cornwallis makes their Chicago Improv Festival debut tonight at the Lakeshore Theater. Cornwallis has appeared at the Toronto Improv Fest, the Phoenix Improv Fest, the New York Underground Comedy Festival, and Around the Coyote, but this is their first CIF performance. Come on out to support the team! Afterwards, we can all hang out at the bar. Just imagine yourself, gazing adoringly into Sean’s eyes from across the table…
Cornwallis at the CIF Preview
Thursday, May 8th, 2008A couple weekends ago, CIC house team Cornwallis performed in the Chicago Improv Festival preview weekend. It was a fun show, and a great warm-up for our CIF performance in just a few weeks!
All photos (c) Angela Manginelli and CIF. Thanks to CIF for permission to share ‘em!
Fuck you CIF!
Thursday, March 27th, 2008Did you get snubbed by CIF? Before you say “Fuck you, Jonathan Pitts and Mark Sutton,” be aware that there is another opportunity to be a part of the 2008 Chicago Improv Festival!
Snubfest and the Chicago Improv Festival present Second Chances, a special performance featuring groups that were not accepted to CIF. The performance will take place at the Chemically Imbalanced Theater during the week of Snubfest (June 5 – 8, 2008) and the Chicago Improv Festival (June 2 – 8, 2008)
To apply, please follow Snubfest application guidelines at http://www.snubfest.com/submission.html, and let us know that you were snubbed from CIF. The new deadline for admission is Thursday, April 10.
Cornwallis goes Around the Coyote
Tuesday, October 16th, 2007COLLABORATION!
by Jill Fenstermaker
So goes the song that the Chicago-based sketch group Planet Terrance wrote for the Around the Coyotes recent collaboration project. CIC’s group Cornwallis was fortunate enough to participate in the project as well. The venture (and its subsequent weekend-long workshop)sought to answer the question What can happen on a stage when visual artists, musicians and performers collaborate? We were paired with visual artist Caroline Picard, who had very little exposure to theater and was unfamiliar with improv. She talked about her art and learned about ours, and together we created a way to influence and inspire each other on stage.
Our collaboration culminated this weekend when we performed three shows at the Around the Coyote Fall Arts Festival. Caroline created many new paintings specifically for our performances. Her influence continued as she instructed which paintings should appear in each performance (we had no idea which ones would be included) and also gave us a suggestion to begin the show (again, we received this about 2 minutes before the show.) Director Jonathan Pitts was on hand to give us guidance.
This multidisciplinary performance experience was one of the most creatively fulfilling projects Ive ever been a part of. It was like doing a show with props, except that the props could be anything! We used paintings as masks, as additional characters, and as part of the set. Blank canvases and screens were used to convey emotions and feelings. Lots of positive feed back was received about the shows and about our form, including one person who said I never thought to improvise with paintings.
Our enjoyment and the audiences may lead us to explore an opportunity to do this form again, so please stay tuned. In the meantime well continue to cherish the experience, remembering that if we’re ever in need of a creative kick, we simply have to sing the words (or word, rather) to Planet Terrances song: COLLABORATION!
Sitting Down with CIF
Monday, April 23rd, 2007
CIC: So Jonathan you have the 10th annual Chicago Improv Festival coming just around the corner. Can you give us some background on the festival.
Jonathan: 10 years ago I had the idea to put together the festival. I then reached out to Frances Callier and asked her if she wanted to co-create and co-produce the festival. She said yes and we started working together on hatching out a 3 year plan. After 9 months of planning, we did the first festival at the old Annoyance place.
CIC: Can you tell us what inspired you to create this festival and what the first year was like?
Jonathan: I was working on a children’s festival when I got hit by the realization that there had never been an improv festival in the history of Chicago. 40 plus years of improv history and no festivals. Weird, especially since Chicago has so many festivals. So, we jumped into it and made it happen. The first year we had 10 shows, 27 ensembles, at 1 venue and we drew 1,800 people.
CIC: Any funny stories you care to share about the past 10 years of CIF?
Jonathan; It’s funny but I can’t think of any funny stories connected to CIF. That’s because it takes so much work to make CIF happen, that all I’m doing is working to make it happen, preparing for it to happen, watching it happen, or putting everything away after the festival is over. The funny happens on-stage, not off.
CIC: This year Chemically Imbalanced Comedy is a co-presenter in the Festival. We will be co-presenting the Apprentice Stage on April 28 at 10pm at the Cornservatory. Tell us a bit about the Apprentice Team program.
Jonathan: We are very excited to debut the Apprentice Team programs with CIC at the Cornservatory. We wanted to do something different than just offer the same improv workshops that we’ve offered in the past, and we wanted to create something that utilized the resources that CIF has both as a festival and as a non-for-profit organization. The Apprentice Teams became our answer. We had 12 teams apply and we accepted 5 of them. These 5 teams are getting 10 hours of coaching from a CIF Artistic Associate, meetings with myself and CIF Artistic Director Mark Sutton, the chance to see some CIF shows, and the chance to perform at CIF with their coach watching and giving feedback. We also want to be able to be of service as an organzation to these 5 ensembles over the upcoming year. We feel the Apprentice Team program can really make a difference in art and business of these 5 teams.
CIC: Any other thoughts you want to share about the upcoming CIF 10?
Jonathan: 10 years is a long time to do anything. In my ten years, I am very grateful to all the many improvisers, literally from all over the world, that I’ve met along the way. I’m also very grateful for all the amazing and great improv I’ve seen at CIF.
Chicago Improv Festival Kicks off tonight at 7pm at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Garr Hall, 78 E. Randolph. CIC will co-present the Apprentice Stage on Saturday Night at 10pm. For more info on all CIF events log onto www.chicagoimprovfestival.org
