Dear Performers of the 2006 Toronto International Improv Festival,
In its brief five-year history, the Toronto International Improv Festival has continuously out-performed, out-grown and out-down its previous year’s incarnation with thanks in no small part to the wonderful performers that come to our festival year after year.
This year’s partnership with The Second City has demonstrated to the Toronto communities, both improv performers and audience, that the art form of improvised theatre is growing, developing and spreading its reach to more participants, more students and more audiences.
The 52-hour marathon held at the Bad Dog Theatre was virtually seamless and we learned a lot from this process this year that will help take us into future years. The marathon was a stone on the developmental path of the festival, leading to a very performer and audience friendly wristband ticketing system.
While we will likely repeat the marathon next year, we plan to move towards more streamlined shows at various venues held in different 30, 45 and 60 minute time blocks. We feel this will allow our festival to grow in a manageable manner, provide more performance opportunities for more groups and provide multiple performance opportunities for visiting shows.
With more than 80 groups performing at this year’s event, the Toronto International Improv Festival has established itself as a premier choice for out-of-town shows. The festival has become the second largest improv festival in the world, which is quite an accomplishment for being produced on a budget of less than $5,000.
We could not have done this without the exceptional work of our volunteer staff, the staff at the various venues and the amazing performers who continue to choose Toronto as a place to demonstrate their craft and showcase their art form. We truly feel that the Toronto festival is a festival for performers and we plan to maintain and hone our focus in that direction.
Things to look forward to next year may include: an awards ceremony, more 4-day intensive workshops, keynote talks, presentations and discussions, T-shirts, podcasts, webcasts, and event sponsorship so that we can do some more really cool things.
We look forward to the next five years and beyond.
Cheers,
Kevin Patrick Robbins
Executive Producer, TIIF
In its brief five-year history, the Toronto International Improv Festival has continuously out-performed, out-grown and out-down its previous year’s incarnation with thanks in no small part to the wonderful performers that come to our festival year after year.
This year’s partnership with The Second City has demonstrated to the Toronto communities, both improv performers and audience, that the art form of improvised theatre is growing, developing and spreading its reach to more participants, more students and more audiences.
The 52-hour marathon held at the Bad Dog Theatre was virtually seamless and we learned a lot from this process this year that will help take us into future years. The marathon was a stone on the developmental path of the festival, leading to a very performer and audience friendly wristband ticketing system.
While we will likely repeat the marathon next year, we plan to move towards more streamlined shows at various venues held in different 30, 45 and 60 minute time blocks. We feel this will allow our festival to grow in a manageable manner, provide more performance opportunities for more groups and provide multiple performance opportunities for visiting shows.
With more than 80 groups performing at this year’s event, the Toronto International Improv Festival has established itself as a premier choice for out-of-town shows. The festival has become the second largest improv festival in the world, which is quite an accomplishment for being produced on a budget of less than $5,000.
We could not have done this without the exceptional work of our volunteer staff, the staff at the various venues and the amazing performers who continue to choose Toronto as a place to demonstrate their craft and showcase their art form. We truly feel that the Toronto festival is a festival for performers and we plan to maintain and hone our focus in that direction.
Things to look forward to next year may include: an awards ceremony, more 4-day intensive workshops, keynote talks, presentations and discussions, T-shirts, podcasts, webcasts, and event sponsorship so that we can do some more really cool things.
We look forward to the next five years and beyond.
Cheers,
Kevin Patrick Robbins
Executive Producer, TIIF