LAUNCHING IN MARCH 2025: Monster Improv’s Longform Improv Training Program
Monster Improv is proud to introduce our Longform Improv Training Program (aka LIT Pro)!
Improv is the Art of Play and Monster Improv’s LIT Pro offers leveled classes in longform improv, empowering individual students to do their best work while also curating the skills to collaboratively create ensemble-driven, feature-length performances. The Monster Improv approach seeks to playfully center emotional honesty, truth, and collective connection on stage to discover drama, tragedy, and — HELL YEAH! — comedy.
Each level of LIT Pro is treated like a lab class — reflecting the experimental roots of the art form — where you’ll learn by doing. Monster Improv instructors will provide a safe environment for students to courageously jump into the unknown by trusting themselves and each other. You’ll have a blast not knowing what’s coming next, especially when you and your classmates aren’t just going on this ride with each other — you’re creating it along the way together!
Class Pricing for all Eight-Week Classes:
Suggested price of $299 for 24 hours of instruction per eight-week class.
To make LIT Pro classes as accessible as possible, Monster Improv is using a Choose Your Price model with a suggested price of $299. Students are welcome to pay less than the suggested price because, hey, times are hard but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have fun. People are also welcome to pay more than the suggested price to Pay It Forward and help subsidize classes for others. There is a nonrefundable $20 fee to hold a spot in the class but waivers are available upon request.
About LIT Pro Class Prerequisites:
While we recommend that all students start with Lab 1 to learn and adapt to the vocabulary of core concepts and techniques that will be used throughout LIT Pro and to strengthen their ability to improvise great scenes with anyone of any experience level, Monster Improv also recognizes that there are a number of accomplished folks who’ve studied and performed at great improv theaters across the valley — or even around the country and world! — who feel that their experience and flexibility will enable them to jump right into Labs 2 through 4, ready to treat all of their fellow students like the poets and geniuses they are.
Lab 1 – Longform Scenework
Learn the fundamental concepts and skills of scenic improvisation, ensemble work, and confident stage performance including deep listening, being present & authentic, and being affected; peerdom and collective connection; joyfully embracing risk; regarding each moment as a gift to cultivate a relentless sense of play and discovery; and of course, Yes-And, the bedrock principle of accepting, incorporating, and building upon each other’s ideas.
Through emotional honesty and clear, committed choices, students will create unique characters with strong POVs and intriguing relationships to discover the Heart of the Scene (aka what the scene is really about and why we’re compelled to watch) with their fellow players. Students will also learn to use vocal inflection, physicality and movement, pantomimed object work, and other stage performance methods to conjure up a vivid reality right in front of our faces. As an ensemble, students will utilize various techniques (edits, tagouts, scenic contrast, pattern play, connections, callbacks, etc.) to turn the building blocks of two-person scenes into full-length performances. Whether you’re new to improv or experienced and looking for a tune-up, this class will open up fun, new horizons.
Prerequisite: None
Location: TBA
Class capacity: 8 to 12 students
Class session: 3 hours per class for eight weeks (plus a showcase performance)
Class time and dates – 10am to 1pm on the following Saturdays:
- March 1, 2025
- March 8, 2025
- March 15, 2025
- March 22, 2025
- March 29, 2025
- April 5, 2025
- April 12, 2025
- April 19, 2025
Lab 2 – Longform Ensemble
Building upon the concepts and tactics in Lab 1, Lab 2 focuses on establishing and honing the Group Mind (not groupthink!), which creates a cycle of inspiration that enables individuals to take bigger risks and enhances harmony among the ensemble so as to playfully stir up fun, harness chaos, and collectively reach new heights. Students will further develop their tools for character creation, world-building, deeper interplay, and group scenes while the ensemble embiggens their ability to explore and heighten themes, character behavior, and scenic elements — all to create more banging, cohesive performances.
Prerequisite: Lab 1 or equivalent experience
Location: TBA
Class size: 8 to 12 students
Class session: 3 hours per class for eight weeks (plus a showcase performance)
Class time and dates – 2pm to 5pm on the following Saturdays:
- March 1, 2025
- March 8, 2025
- March 15, 2025
- March 22, 2025
- March 29, 2025
- April 5, 2025
- April 12, 2025
- April 19, 2025
Lab 3 – Longform Performance: The Multiverse of Harold
The focus is the San Francisco-born, Chicago-raised, and world-renowned performance format, Harold. Playing within the basic structure of the granddaddy of modern longforms, students will learn various Harold openings (the process through which an audience suggestion is explored and themes & ideas are distilled), group games, and techniques to revisit and heighten established scenic realities (including Game of the Scene) over three acts. Using Monster Improv’s multiverse approach to Harold, the ensemble will fearlessly ride the waves of different realities until the show crescendos into a crashing of worlds — wormholes and all. Trusting themselves, each other, and the Group Mind, students will risk it all to tie all the threads together for a show that’s greater than the sum of its parts or is, at the very least, the most fun disaster anyone’s ever seen!
Location: TBA
Prerequisite: Lab 2 or equivalent experience
Class size: 8 to 12 students
Class session: 3 hours per class for eight weeks (plus a showcase performance)
Class time and dates – 2pm to 5pm on the following Sundays:
- March 2, 2025
- March 9, 2025
- March 16, 2025
- March 23, 2025
- March 30, 2025
- April 6, 2025
- April 13, 2025
- April 20, 2025
Lab 4 – Longform Performance Grab Bag / Buffet / Mixtape / Party
Over the past few decades, several noteworthy longform shows and formats have been created and students will learn the basics of many of them including each form’s philosophy, flow, and specific techniques. Show formats and approaches like Jazz Freddy, The Deconstruction, The Movie, Armando, Close Quarters, JTS Brown, Slacker, Eventé, The Bat, The Mosaic, The Scramble, The Cassette, Liquid Metal, and smaller ensemble improv (duos, trios, and quartets) will expand students’ improv tool belts and empower them to navigate any format.
Location: TBA
Prerequisite: Lab 3 or equivalent experience
Class size: 8 to 12 students
Class session: 3 hours per class for eight weeks (plus showcase performances)
Class time and dates – TBD
Lab 5 – Longform Master Class
While students receive individual feedback throughout all LIT Pro classes, the outside eye of your Lab 5 instructor is the microscope to the teacher’s outside eye to give individuals an in-depth assessment of where they’re at as performers. Customized, student-specific challenges will help inspire and push each person (in a safe, nurturing way!) past their performance habits and improv go-tos to level up and become an even greater asset to any ensemble they’re in.
Location: TBA
Prerequisite: Lab 4
Class size: 8 to 12 students
Class session: 3 hours per class for eight weeks (plus showcase performances)
Class time and dates – TBD
Lab 6 – Advanced Longform Performance: The Deconstruction
The Deconstruction was developed and performed throughout 1993 by iO Chicago’s legendary Harold team, The Family, under the direction of Del Close. It was formalized as a format by Miles Stroth (iO Chicago, iO West, The Pack Theater) and Stroth’s acolyte, Brian James O’Connell, continues to spread it with his teaching throughout the world. One of the most challenging longforms known to improvkind, The Deconstruction begins with a realistic — and later, recurring — scene whose every bit of information is explored by the ensemble through its other components: Thematic Scenes, Behavioral Commentary Scenes, Tangent Scenes, and The Run (a segment of increasingly speedier scenes). This eight-week Decon deep dive and its examination of the human condition will shake up any improvisor’s DNA in the best way possible.
Location: TBA
Prerequisite: Lab 5
Class size: 8 to 12 students
Class session: 3 hours per class for eight weeks (plus showcase performances)
Class time and dates – TBD
Lab 7 – Advanced Longform Performance: Synthesis
Under the expert direction of a distinguished Monster Improv teacher and using the skills and knowledge acquired in previous labs, the ensemble of students will synthesize their own feature-length performance format. Inspired by the group’s interests and each other’s strengths & sensibilities, the class will create a daring formula for scenes, longform elements, and various techniques to unleash an entirely new and cohesive performance piece filled with meaning; artistic challenges for the performers and the audience; and gestalt.
Location: TBA
Prerequisite: Lab 6
Class size: 8 to 12 students
Class session: 3 hours per class for eight weeks (plus showcase performances)
Class time and dates – TBD
Q: Want even more nerdy, behind the scenes improv info?