improvOly

What is improv?

Improvisational comedy is what we do here at improvOly. There are two major types: short-form, and long-form.

Short-form improv comedy is a lot like the popular TV show, “Whose Line is it Anyway?” where a set of people play games and characters in response to a random prompt — nothing is rehearsed ahead of time, and the actors are fully playing off of each other.

Long-form improv looks like a longer scene or story, with a single element tying it all together. Sometimes this looks like a member of the audience who gets interviewed before the actors then play out different scenarios (with a lot of creative license) that may have happened in order to inspire the answers they heard. For an example: ImprovBroadway does a long-form game where they make up an entire musical based on prompts from the audience.