2024 Festival Workshops
Four Workshops to Develop Your Musical Improv Skills
We are excited to announce that the 2024 Bay Area Musical Improv Festival will feature four workshops taught by a mix of visiting and local teachers. Each workshop provides the opportunity for musical improvisers to learn new skills and receive feedback from seasoned instructors. The workshops are tailored to a range of experience levels, from newer musical improvisers to the advanced.
Each workshop is 2.5 hours in length and is capped at 14 students maximum to ensure the quality of instruction.
Learn more about each workshop and the instructors below, and register to save your spot!
Saturday, Oct 26 at 10:30AM
The Power of You
Utilize Your Entire Body and Emotions on Stage
Instructor: Betse Green (Portland, OR)
If you’ve ever felt disconnected from your body in musical improv, or found yourself starting scenes in the same location in the middle of the stage, or if you sometimes have trouble tapping into emotion to drive to song–this workshop is for you.
This hands-on workshop is aimed at whole body improv: Using your full range of emotion, your entire body, and every part of the stage–to take your improv to the next level. Over two and a half hours, Betse Green will help you learn tools and approaches to help you break out of your physical habits on stage and unlock the connection between your body and your emotions.
Student Information
This workshop is open to those with at least some musical improv experience, such as having performed musical improv or taken a class.
About the Instructor
Betse Green is a professional improviser and Certified Improv Educator with over 20-years of experience. Currently, she is an ensemble member and teacher at Curious Comedy Theater and CSz (ComedySportz) Portland. She also performs regularly with the acclaimed indy teams B&B, B.A.B.E., Broad Selection, Bliss and Fourte. Her talents have been showcased performing and teaching at improv festivals and theaters across the Globe and she has Directed Festival Ensembles at the San Diego Improv Festival, Impride Festival (San Diego), Laugh Riot Festival (Phoenix) and directed the first ever Festival Ensemble at the San Francisco Improv Festival.
Saturday, Oct 26 at 1:30PM
Musical Improv Games and Beyond
Improve Your Teamwork and Musicianship
Instructor: Joshua Raoul Brody (San Francisco)
This workshop is currently sold-out. Join the waitlist here.
This workshop for all experience levels is a deep dive into the exciting world of musical improv games! You’ll learn a mix of classic performance games, like Ding & Sing, Song Cue and Inner Song-a-logue, alongside experimental games that will help improve your teamwork skills and musicianship.
Newer musical improvisers will get the chance to learn fun new games that help you to shine, while more experienced improvisers will get to stretch out of their comfort zones and learn new exercises and genres, such as performing a short-form improvised opera.
Student Information
This workshop is open to students with some improv performance experience.
About the Instructor
Joshua Raoul Brody has been accompanying the great, the near-great, the near-near-great, and the far-great since the early 1970s. He moved to San Francisco in 1974 where he fell in with the burgeoning “comical musedy” scene. With the Rick & Ruby Show he toured opening for and accompanying Robin Williams (and landing a guest spot on Mork & Mindy). Williams introduced him to improv comedy, and he has become one of the foremost improv players in the Bay Area, music director for BATS Improv, founding member of Pulp Playhouse and True Fiction, and house band for Comedy Day, to name a few. He has also taught the craft of song improv through BATS as well as in Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Ashland OR, and Stanford University. Along the way, he has accompanied artists as varied as Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits, the Residents, Florence Henderson, Nina Hagen, and many, many others.
When asked to describe himself in one word, Mr. Brody replies “Unable to follow instructions.”
Sunday, Oct 27 at 10:30AM
Lyrics That Matter
Put Poetry, Storytelling and Silence into Your Songs
Instructors: Aden and Eric Nepom (Portland, OR)
This workshop is now sold out. Join the waitlist here.
Take your improvised song-making up several notches with this lyrical workshop. Aden and Eric Nepom will explore several lyrical techniques that will give you more tools and choices to make your songs memorable and inspiring!
In this workshop, you’ll learn lyrical strategies rooted in emotion, poetry, storytelling, non-verbal tools and more, resulting in solo songs, duets and group numbers that are catchy, fulfilling and surprisingly sophisticated.
Student Information
This workshop is open to those with at least some musical improv experience, such as having performed musical improv or taken a class.
About the Instructors
Real life couple Aden and Eric Nepom have been improvising for over 60 years between the two of them. They have been playing together for roughly eleven years, and have only been married for eight blissful years. Recognized for outstanding skills in theatre, speech, communication and development, these two share a passion for committed character work, grounded platform building and that moment where one realizes that anything can happen in improv! Individually they’ve created programming, won awards and traveled the world as improv teachers, stage performers and educators. Together, they’ve taught and performed on stages from as close as 20 minutes from their house, to as far away as Tel Aviv. Their festival appearances include the Fertile Ground Festival in Portland, OR, the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival in Austin, TX, the Alaska State Improv Festival in Juneau, AK, the Seattle Festival of Improvised Theatre in Seattle, WA, New York Musical Improv Fest in NY, and Mount Olymprov Greek International Improv Festival in Athens, Greece and many more.
Sunday, Oct 27 at 1:30PM
Advanced Music Improv
A Diagnostic Workshop for Your Needs
Instructor: Shulie Cowen (Los Angeles)
This workshop is now sold out. Join the waitlist here.
This advanced workshop is an opportunity for experienced musical improvisers to get individual attention and feedback, with a particular focus on two-person scenes and duets. Exercises will be customized to the particular issues students are facing in their musical improv, with a focus on giving you tools that you can put to use on stage immediately.
This workshop is something like a personalized coaching session with Shulie Cowen, the director and co-founder of Opening Night: The Improvised Musical!, which has been running for over 25 years in Los Angeles.
Student Information
This workshop is open to those who have studied or performed musical improv at the intermediate or advanced level. Because of the advanced nature of this workshop, those who have only taken one musical improv class should enroll in a different workshop.
About the Instructor
Shulie Cowen has taught improv to kids, senior citizens, and everyone in between. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, a former member of The Second City National Touring Company, and a member of the original cast of Schoolhouse Rock Live!. Shulie studied improv in Chicago at The Second City Training Center, The Annoyance Theatre, and at iO with Del Close. She has taught at iO West and The Second City LA and currently directs and performs in Opening Night: The Improvised Musical!® every Friday at iO West in Los Angeles.
The Bay Area Musical Improv Festival is run by Bay Area Musical Improv, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is create opportunities for musical improvisers in the San Francisco Bay Area.