CAMP IMPROV UTOPIA East
WHEN
August 31 - September 3, 2018 (Labor Day Weekend)
WHERE
WHAT
Stroudsburg, PA at Camp Trout Lake
Our annual camp is a 4 day, 3 night retreat for adults 18 and over and takes place at Camp Trout Lake, hidden away in the beautiful Pocono Mountains near Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Improvisers from all over the world come together and learn improv from nationally renowned teachers. This three-night camping experience includes improv workshops from top instructors, camp activities like archery, lake swimming and kayaking. Your accommodations are great too with cabin camping with private showers and bathrooms, all your meals and much more. Camp is a relaxed environment to learn while experiencing camaraderie, community and nature.
Registration for 2018 is Now Open!
- $470 Early Registration price until May, 1 2018
- $485 Late Registration May 2, 2018 to camp.
- $485 Payment Plan Available - 2 Pay Plan
CAMP TUITION INCLUDES
Tuition is All-Inclusive! You get:
- Workshops: 10 hours of workshops from master improv teachers! Performances: Improv jams and shows with your cabinmates!
- Camp Activities: Archery, kayaking, swimming, campfires, volleyball, basketball and so much more!
- Lodging: Shared cabins with private bathrooms, showers and electricity.
- Food: All meals are included and prepared by professional kitchen staff. Special dietary and allergy-friendly meals are available, too!
- Improv Summit: An opportunity to ask our expert panel any questions regarding improv, business, legal, marketing and more!
- Community: Meet improvisors from all over the world... community and camaraderie in nature!
Workshop: Be Selfish
with Megan Gray
Workshop
Are your characters never brought back for callbacks? Are you first to be tagged out? It could be that you haven't given yourself enough in the first scene. This workshop will focus on finding the essence of your character, then maintaining it and growing it. The best thing you can do for your partner is to give yourself something. Let's find that together!
About Megan
Megan is the Artistic Director of the Magnet Theater, a writer, performer and native New Yorker. She has performed with Second City aboard the NCL Gem and is a member of Magnet's resident team "Junior Varsity." She can be seen in such notable shows as "The Armando Diaz Experience" and "The Cast." Megan also produces and hosts the monthly female improv show "We Might Just Kiss."
In addition to teaching Level One, Level Four: Busy Town and the Lady Party class, Megan has taught improvisation at C.W. Post University, Brookdale Community College, Fairfield University, Columbia Business School and festivals around the country. She has studied improv at the Magnet and the UCB Theatre with Armando Diaz, Kevin Dorff, Christina Gausas, Dave Pasquesi, TJ Jagodowski, Jean Villepique, Joe Bill, Dave Razowsky and many others.
Megan graduated with a degree in Dramatic Writing from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and has written for MTV2 and Comedy Central online. She has appeared on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" and "Late Show With David Letterman." In her spare time, she travels the country performing improv with Magnet Theater's Touring Company. In conclusion, Megan wishes you'd call her more.
Workshop: Let it Be
with Louis Kornfeld
Workshop
Do you find yourself pushing too hard in scenes? Struggling to move things forward? Frequently feeling disconnected from your partner? If so then this is the class for you. Learn how to bring a sense of ease back to your work by doing more with less. Give yourself time to breath, get out of your own way and enjoy the luxury of simplicity. Just let it be, friend!
About Louis
Workshop: Speak Up!
with Ashley Comeau
Workshop
The best comedy is about saying something while making people laugh. This course focuses on satire and digging deep to find out what your character has opinions on. This is a class about finding your character’s point of view and using it to build relationships, conflict, and story. Government got you mad? Can’t stand cat videos? Think Beyonce is NOT the Queen Bee? Speak up about it! Help bring your characters to life by giving them something to say!
About Ashley
Ashley Comeau is an improviser, producer, actor, instructor and writer from Canada. Ashley is a Second City alumna who wrote and starred in three revues at The Second City Toronto which garnered her a Dora nomination and a Canadian Comedy Award nomination. She was named Best Female Improviser in Toronto from NOW Magazine’s “Best Of Awards 2015”.
She performs all over the world with her comedy duo – The Lusty Mannequins. It is comprised of Ashley and her partner, Second City alum Connor Thompson. They’ve performed and taught in Ireland, Spain, Germany, England, Canada, USA, on the high seas* (*with Second City Theatricals), and they just got back from headlining the first Mama City Improv Festival in South Africa (which she co-produced).
Select improv shows include; Songbuster – An Improvised Musical (Factory Theatre, Bad Dog Theatre), Theatresports (Bad Dog Theatre), Patron’s Pick Winner, Best of Fringe Winner, and the Ed Mirvish Award-winning People Suck (Toronto Fringe). She has performed with the likes of Colin Mochrie, Robin Duke, Martin Short and John Cleese. You can catch her currently on Degrassi: Next Class as science teacher Ms. Badger and on Odd Squad as the evil villain Jamie Jam!
She loves improv so much that she was just named Head of Improv Programs A-E at Second City Training Centre in Toronto!
She writes and acts and produces for TV and stage now, used to be a tour guide, and almost became a funeral director. That pretty much sums her up. You can follow her on Twitter here: @ashleycomeau
Workshop: Challenge!
with Anděl Sudik
Workshop
We all have strengths and weaknesses so what is your improv kryptonite? Whether it’s accents or initiating we face your fears straight on, fail hard and succeed even harder. It’s a fun supportive environment to test your limits.
About Anděl
Anděl Sudik is a director, improviser, actor and writer based in Chicago. She wrote and performed in the Jeff Award award winning Second City ETC revue “We’re All in this Room Together” as well as produced countless successful two-man shows as Arch&Anděl(The Public House, Annoyance, OoB Festival.) She is also an alum of Boom Chicago in Amsterdam and was a staff writer for Comedy Central News Netherlands. She currently performs at iO Chicago with Chaos Theory and Armando and directs at the Second City(Touring Company, HouseCo.)
She is a faculty member of the Second City Training Center programs; A-E, Conservatory, Advanced and Teen and Youth program and has taught her workshops all over the world(The Improv Shop St. Louis, Monkey Business Institute Madison, OLLIE Northwestern, CLIP U of C, Thy Neighbor’s Goat Bucharest, Dublin, OKC, The Improv Retreat, WI etc.)
Anděl’s deep well of performance experience makes her perspective unique as a director and teacher. Her hands on, in depth work within the disciplines of long form improvisation, short form, sketch and theater make her a thoroughly well-rounded and open minded conduit for art, creation, polish and playfulness.
She values time efficiency, and recognizes that the most powerful thing we bring to the table is us . Whatever we are. She does not update her website enough. YesAndel.Com
Workshop: Heightened Listening
with Wendy Penrod
Workshop
About Wendy Penrod
Wendy is a founding member of OTC Comedy and the current Artistic Director. She has been studying and performing improvisational theatre for over 15 years. She also a member of Pawn Takes Queen and has performed internationally. Wendy co-founded both the Red Rocks Improv Festival and Ye Olde Improv Competition. She is currently one of OTC Comedy's instructors and has taught improv to people of all ages for over 10 years.
Workshop: Better Habits, Better Scenes
with John Windmueller
Workshop
Knowing improv theory is nice, but on stage and in the moment, it’s our habits that most directly shape the quality of our scenes. This workshop is all about introducing and building better habits in your improv, so that you’ll more consistently create better scenes. The habits we’ll cover will help you to confidently initiate scenes, to create and play better characters, to quickly transform stuck scenes, and to more easily hit satisfying conclusions to your scenes.
About John
Elective Classes:
Us Against the World
with Jacque Arend
Workshop
This workshop will explore all the fun and joy of matching, peas in a pod, character driven scenes. Whether it be a game of heightening or a slice of life exploring thematics - this workshop will focus solely on the ability to yes and, matching POV and creating pattern of behavior to create an us against the world relationship.
About Jacque
Jacque Arend started improvising in 2005. Her first dose of education came from IO Chicago's summer intensive. She co-founded The Torch Theatre (Phoenix, Arizona) in 2007 and was a collaborator on their training program. Her focuses include Ensemble Performance, Advanced Formats, as well as various workshop focuses including Deconstruction. Jacque is the lead instructor for The Torch Theatre's Corporate Team Building program and administers the training center. She also instructs the improv/comedy programs for actors at Arizona Actors Academy and is the registration coordinator for Camp Improv Utopia.
Jacque is a regular performer with a handful of ongoing troupes, such as Light Rail Pirates, JaxN Reed, Skewed News Hour and MuChuChu. Jacque has played on main stage of the Phoenix Improv Festival for the last eleven years. Recently she has performed at the 2016 District Improv Festival, 2017 Del Close Marathon and the last three years of the San Diego Improv Festival. She has brought her workshops to the District & San Diego Fest as well as Camp Improv Utopia East.
Elective Classes:
Slow Down! Objects at Work (Start Remembering & Stop Inventing)
with Chris Moody
Workshop
Performing object work is as important to improv as speaking to your scene partner. In this class, we’ll make the objects work for us as an extension of our scene work. We’ll help you communicate to the audience and your scene partners what the heck you’re doing with your hands and why slowing the process down will make your actions more believable.
About Chris
Chris performs regularly at the Pointless Brewery and Theatre (pointlessbrew.com) in Ann Arbor, Michigan with the League of Pointless Improvisers and at festivals around North America with Consolation Fries and Holiday Road. He is one of the founders of the Detroit Improv Festival and the Detroit Improv Collective, Inc. and he volunteers and teaches improv workshops regularly at Gilda's Club Metro Detroit. He spends his weekdays as the Show Operations Manager with SME and travels regularly for work to improv cities around North America. He is also the husband of Improv Utopia East's Arts & Crafts instructor Beverly Moody.
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Elective Classes:
Add or Edit!
with Lauren Morris
Workshop
We make decisions on the fly and under pressure. Two of the biggest decisions we have to make in ensemble pieces is whether we add to the scene that is underway or we edit into something new. We often make a choice and then berate ourselves for making the "wrong" choice! This workshop will explore our instincts and hone our abilities to add or edit with confidence and timing. Through a series of exercises, participants will have numerous opportunities to decide if they should ADD or EDIT!
About Lauren
Lauren Morris is the founder and director of AdLib Theatre Company as well as the Executive Producer for the Central Florida Improv Festival.
Lauren studied improv at The Annoyance Theatre & Bar with Mick Napier and with Paul Vaillancourt (co-Founder of iO West) at iO West. She has taken workshops and classes with such improv notables as Kevin Mullaney, Jill Bernard, Rebecca and Rich Sohn, Adal Rifai, Susan Messing, and Mark Sutton and members of the UCB Theater in New York City.
Lauren hosts The Improv Teachers (winner of Best of Improv Podcasts, 2017, PlayerFM). A weekly podcast dedicated to discussing the art of teaching improv. Guests include Jill Bernard, Will Hines, Jimmy Carrane, Karen Graci, and Nick Armstrong.
Additionally, she is a veteran of numerous improv festivals where she has been invited to perform and teach. Most recent festivals include Femprovisor Festival in San Francisco, Duofest in Philadelphia, Palm Beach Improv Festival, San Diego Improv Fest and internationally at the Ireland Improv Festival.
Lauren also directs and produces including original works from local playwrights via The Playwright’s Round Table and The Orlando Fringe Festival.
As a writer, Lauren has been featured in publications such as Razed, Slackjaw, Belladonna, MockMom, Points in Case, and Robot Butt. She honed her satire skills via Second City.
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Camp is one of the best improv experiences that I could have had. To be in a place where everyone loves improv as much as you do is such a rush. The teachers are supportive and are invested in your learning. The view is awe striking and I always wanted seconds at meal times. You truly do make amazing friends and memories there.
Christina L - Los Angeles, CA