A team formed by the IS cohort of March 2021 that graduated online during the pandemic.

This cohort started with Level 1 in the November 2019 session, and had completed five classes of Level 2 in March 2020 before the decision to shutdown and quarantine on March 15, 2020. As what had been expected to be “a couple of weeks” - with classes resuming around April 4 - turned into an extended hiatus with unknown resolution, the decision was made to continue with classes online via Zoom:

“What we thought might be a break for a few weeks has obviously become much longer than any of us anticipated. We hesitated to move classes online because we really think improv, as much as possible, is about being in the same physical space as your classmates and we wanted to give ourselves a chance to re-capture that if/when it seemed appropriate. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that will be possible or desirable in the near future.”

The final three classes of Level 2 were held online in June 2020. This cohort would go to finish the rest of the program [Level 3 - Scenework; Level 4 - Harold; Level 5 - Forms Workshop; Level 6 - Student Showcases] completely online via Zoom, with the two original Level 2 cohorts being merged into one online class from Level 3 onwards.

While this was one class online, the class split into two teams for the Showcase performances. There were two forms that were developed by the class:

“Ancient Humans”: teams would get suggestions of an everyday object, e.g. a remote control, which would inspire an opening of two “future archaeologists” discovering said object as an ancient relic, and then performing scenes inspired by this source scene. The show would periodically go back to the archaeologists as a source scene, to once again inspire subsequent scenes.

“A Swing And A Myth”: a Living Room-adjacent form inspired by mythology

This cohort graduated online on March 26, 2021.

If you really want to, you can watch the shows online on The Improv Shop’s Facebook page:

Show #1

Show #2

Show #3

Show #4 and Graduation