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InTO your improV

ColdTowne Theater offers elective courses with community leaders and guest instructors, sometimes on niche topics, always with goal of offering improvisers a fun path towards well-roundedness. Now available:

Improv Diagnostics w/Asaf Ronen (starting April 13)

Character Lab w/Heidi Rogers (starting April 24)

Playing Slow to Play Fast w/Kenny Madison (starting April 24)

Real Scenes w/Clifton Highfield (starting April 24)

Shut the F*ck Up: Honing Group Scene Dynamics w/Michael Jastroch
(May 7 & 14)


ASAF RONEN is the author of Directing Improv: Show the Way By Getting Out of the Way. He regularly performs, teaches and produces in Austin, was Education Director at The Institution Theater for eight years and is currently the Conservatory Director at ColdTowne Theater. He is also a Producer and Education Director of Austin’s annual Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. He has taught and performed improvisation in Canada, Great Britain, Norway and in twenty-eight of these United States with such groups as the B. Iden Payne Award winning Confidence Men (improvised plays in the style of David Mamet) and imp (mostly silent improv). He was also producer on TRUST US, THIS IS ALL MADE UP, a documentary on legendary improvisers TJ & Dave that premiered at Austin’s South by Southwest Festival in 2009 and helped develop the improvised film Days of Delusion with director Scott Myers. In 1999, Asaf founded the improv website, YESand.com of which he is Editor-in-Chief.

IMPROV DIAGNOSTICS
WITH ASAF RONEN

Prerequisite: Level 2 or higher in an established improv school.

No lesson plans. Just a steady stream of scenework to help you pinpoint your individual tendencies. Find out what your strengths are and where you could explore further. Working in a non-stop series of improv reps, you’ll learn what your patterns are and how to break them through personalized challenges. Great for intermediates who want to develop new skills and for professionals who want to keep fresh.

Saturdays, 12:30pm – 2:30pm
starting April 13 (6 weeks)

REGISTER FOR IMPROV DIAGNOSTICS
HEIDI ROGERS is based in Austin, TX, and has been performing improv for over 10 years. In addition to performing in over 25 mainstage shows in Austin, Heidi has performed at improv festivals around the country including UCB's Del Close Marathon (New York City), Improvaganza (Honolulu, HI), New South Comedy Festival (Greenville, SC), Improv Fest Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK), Big Little Comedy Fest (San Antonio, TX) and Out of Bounds (Austin, TX). Heidi’s favorite part of improv is creating rich, unique characters with a myriad of voices and accents. She is passionate about teaching improv and sharing her performance experience with the ColdTowne student community. When not improvising Heidi enjoys game nights with friends, watching movies at Alamo Drafthouse, spending time outside and ample snuggles with her dog Leo.

CHARACTER LAB
WITH HEIDI ROGERS

Prerequisite: Level 3 or higher in an established improv school.

Let’s experiment. Let’s play. Let’s explore all the potential characters that live inside of you. Through physicality, voice, and all the other available tools, you’ll learn how to get into character more quickly and more intensely. You’ll broaden your range of characters and see how to make them stick around for the whole scene.

Wednesdays, 6pm – 8pm
starting April 24 (4 weeks)

REGISTER FOR CHARACTER LAB
KENNY MADISON has been doing improv for 15 years and coaching/teaching for 8 of those years. He currently teaches at Hideout Theatre and has done mainstages at Coldtowne, Hideout, Fallout, and directed 3 shows at The Institution Theater (RIP). In 2024, he directed "What Next?" for FronteraFest's Free Fringe with Gloria Rabil. That made it into Best of Week, which is pretty cool. With Heidi Rogers, he performs as one-half of Kenny/Rogers, which was accepted into the Del Close Marathon in 2018 and tours whenever they can. They currently have a monthly show as the hosts/producers of the After Dark LIVE Adult Comedy Show in Austin. Whenever he is not keeping busy with that, he's 1/3 of Lasso Cast, a Ted Lasso podcast where he talks with critics, crew, and castmembers from the Emmy Award winning show Ted Lasso. And he also co-hosts the Trek Wars Podcast, which goes through both Star Trek and Star Wars in chronological release order. When he's not doing any of that, he sleeps.

PLAYING SLOW TO PLAY FAST
WITH KENNY MADISON

If you’re an anxious improviser, this class is for you. In this four week class, we’re going to slow down your brain so you can speed up your play. Kenny Madison will be giving you tactics, shortcuts, and straight up lazy hack moves that will make you look like you’re confident (without even needing to be!)

All the while, we’ll be unlocking the note of what it means to slow down and listen to your fellow players. It’s not rocket science – it’s just getting out of your own way, noticing the choices you’re already making, and doing it on stage. If it sounds simple, it is. But you just don’t know it yet.

Wednesdays, 8pm – 10pm
starting April 24 (4 weeks)

REGISTER FOR PLAYING SLOW
CLIFTON HIGHFIELD has been teaching in Austin for over a decade and has studied comedy in Chicago at Improv Olympic, in Los Angeles at iO West, and at UCB LA. Clifton has performed in over a thousand shows and taught hundreds of students at various theaters, festivals, comedy clubs, schools, and workplaces across the US and has international performance and teaching experience from Canada and Australia. Clifton is currently a Faculty Instructor at The Fallout Theater. He recently performed in Sextet at Coldtowne Theater and currently on Harold nights with Captain January. Clifton will be a special guest performer with Glitter Witch at The Hideout Theater Fridays in May.

REAL SCENES
WITH CLIFTON HIGHFIELD

Prerequisite: Level 3 or higher in an established improv school or theatrical experience.

Make improv easy again by slowing down and letting your imagination do the work for you. Play the moment honestly by noticing what the scene is already offering. Practice sustaining the scene and heightening with agreement, listening, and grounded active choices. Make moments matter by applying emotional stakes.

Wednesdays, 8pm – 10pm
starting April 24 (4 weeks)

REGISTER FOR REAL SCENES
MICHAEL JASTROCH is a comedic actor, writer, and improv instructor, formerly based out of Austin, TX, and presently living his “Van Life” dream of traveling the country and working out of Walmart Parking lots. As one of the founders of ColdTowne Theater and a member of the seminal improv groups ColdTowne and The Frank Mills, Michael has won several awards for his work, including “Best Comedy Group ” in the Austin Chronicle Reader’s poll and the B. Iden Payne award for “Outstanding Improv Ensemble.” His improv and sketch comedy podcast Victrola! was named one of Austin’s “Best Comedy Podcasts” and nominated by Austin Chronicle readers as one of the city’s best comedy groups. Michael has taught improv comedy for the last seventeen years and has been nominated and won “Best Improv Teacher” and “Best Improv Coach” a whole bunch. He’s taught his improv workshops all over the country, including at the Magnet Theater in NYC, the Oberlin College Improv Festival, The Oklahoma Improv Festival, the Phoenix Improv Festival, The Dallas Comedy Fest, The Alaska State Improv Fest, and the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival in Chapel Hill.

SHUT THE F*CK UP:
honing group scene dynamics
WITH MICHAEL JASTROCH

Prerequisite: Level 2 or higher in an established improv school.

By popular demand!

Experienced improvisers know that scenes can get exponentially harder to wrangle the more people you add to them. The more folks on stage, the more likely it is for people to talk over each other and for scenes to lose focus and devolve into an unwatchable cluster-f*ck.

We got your back! In this deep dive into the intricacies of group scene work, we’ll hone skills to juggle complex scene structures and intricate character dynamics, including manipulating stage pictures, wordlessly pushing focus, and most importantly, learning when to shut the f*ck up.

Tuesdays, 8pm – 10pm
May 7 & 14

REGISTER FOR GROUP SCENE DYNAMICS

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