The strangest year for improv

When the Improv Chronicle started as a podcast in July 2019, the first episode was based around the growth of improv festivals and was partly recorded in Sarasota, Florida. The idea of the podcast was to hear different voices from the global improv community and to get to as many of them physically as I could through festivals and other scheduled travel.

Eight months into this podcast, everything changed. The pandemic has meant that I have now spent more months recording people almost exclusively via internet links than I have in person. 

Thankfully I was already doing some interviews using online recording platforms so for me the shift wasn’t too tricky. For entire improv groups who have been performing in the same room together for years, it has been a harder shift. Some groups have done online shows, some groups have paused entirely. When this is “all over” (whatever that means now?) it is going to be interesting to see how improv builds back.

Whether your team has pushed through or reinvented itself online or whether it has waited patiently for improv to go back to being a live, in-person art-form again, I hope 2021 brings you a renewed sense of passion and fulfilment in your work.