Ocean State Improv Festival
June 4-8, 2025
Festival Details
The five-day Ocean State Improv Festival brings together artists and troupes to create an interconnected community that teaches, learns, inspires, and performs together on Rhode Island’s beautiful southern coast!
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Nightly performances showcase the fantastic talents of performers from all over the world. 14 performances, including mixers, featuring 30-35 troupes total.
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A broad slate of workshops and multi-day intensives by top-flight teachers immerse you in new experiences, passions, and a worldwide network of inspiring collaborators.
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“Mixer shows” (Theatresports, Micetro, Pirate, and the Duo Bracket Challenge) and workshop showcases let individual artists and members of troupes perform alongside new friends.
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Connect with members of the world-wide improv community!
Show Schedule
Wed, June 4
7 pm: Bard to the Bone (RI), Galaxy View Improv Drive-In (RI), Sympathetic Magic (MN), Salt & Pepper (CA), Whatever Fate Decides (RI)
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9:30 pm: The Bit Players (RI), The Manny Rodriguez Show (MN), You Enter a Tavern (RI)
Thurs, June 5
5 pm: The Silver Lining (MA), The Pacheacos (MN), The BisiBeleBois (IL)
7 pm: Just Another Cabaret (RI), Juliet & Juliet (MN/CA), Some Things May Never Happen (NV)
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9:30 pm: Pirate Improv - Mixer show featuring 5 directors competing for their vision!
Fri, June 6
5 pm: Mr. Mr. (MN), Hey, Handsome! (NY), Griswold-Jenkins (MA), Bingewatch (CA), B.A.B.E. Presents: I Love Musicals! (OR)
7 pm: Electric City Puppets (NY), Untold Tales: Improvised Horror (RI), Brotha Brotha (MN)
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9:30 pm: Micetro Mixer Show
11 pm: Slumber Party (CA), Short Run (MI), Grandpa Phil Does a Bedtime Musical (WA)
Sat, June 7 ​
2 pm: Oops, All Animals (MA), Ben Gardner's Boat (NY), Loose Caboose (RI), Roodie & Tootsie's Love Lines (RI), The Void (RI), Campfire Dragons (CT)
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5 pm: Improvised Shakespeare Workshop Showcase, VerizonQwest (AZ), B&B (OR), Flores/Amrami (MN), Magical Lying Hour (TX)
7 pm: But of Mind (CA), Hell Yeah! Improvised Musicals (NY), Juliet & Juliet (MN/CA)
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9:30 pm: Theatresports Mixer Show
11 pm: PattyCakes (MN), Bird and Friends - Cosmic Unity (NY), My Town (MN)
Sun, June 8
2 pm: Duo Bracket Challenge
Festival Passes and Tickets
Want to see shows at the festival? We've got your options covered!
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All-Access Festival Pass: $160 You get tickets to every performance and an Ocean State Improv Festival t-shirt! If you sign up for 9+ hours of workshops, you get an All-Access Festival Pass for free!​
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Day Pass: Wed/Thurs - $40, Fri/Sat - $60 You can get a Day Pass to see all of the shows on a specific day of the festival. Performers get a free Day Pass for the day of their performance and discounts on all passes.
- Individual Show Tickets: You can of course get tickets to each show individually if you want! Choose your own price based on our new pricing system for all of our performances. We want everyone to be able to enjoy these incredible performances!
- ​​Standard ticket price for OSIF shows is $25.
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$35 tickets are available to help support the Jack Albanese Scholarship Fund to ensure everyone has the opportunity to take classes and workshops at the CTC.
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$45 tickets are available for anyone who can afford a little extra to support this and future festivals.
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$10 tickets are available for anyone 25 & under and anyone who needs them.
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Performers get special deals on all passes!
Workshops
The Ocean State Improv Festival is focused on providing opportunities to create a community of improvisers that teaches, learns, inspires, and performs together!
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If you take 9+ hours of workshops, you get a free All-Access Festival Pass! (That's 3 workshops or 2 if one is a two-day workshop!)
Thurs, June 5
Unlock Your Inner Brotha Brotha!!
with Denzel Belin & John Gebretatose
Thurs, June 5, 10 am - 1 pm
​This class is designed to teach the Brotha Brotha philosophy and how to incorporate it into your own personal play. Learn about the magic of going fast, letting loose, and building a trust that allows everyone to shine and make a unique product that couldn't be possible without you!
There Are No Mistakes in Improv
with Jennifer Lavenhar
Thurs, June 5, 10 am - 1 pm
The great jazz musician Miles Davis famously said, “When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note you play that makes it good or bad.” This is true for any live, improvisational medium, whether it’s music, dance, or theater.
In this workshop, we’ll borrow lessons from the world of partnered dance - specifically West Coast Swing (WCS). In WCS, partners share a common vocabulary, extraordinary attention, absolute trust, and an agreement to lead boldly and follow whole-heartedly. The result is a dance where every move looks like the right move.
In the first half of this workshop, we'll learn one very simple WCS dance move that ANYONE can do. We'll practice and play with it, exploring its relevance to improv. In the second half, we take the improv lessons we just experienced with our bodies, and bring them into scene work.
You do not need to have ANY dance experience. You do not need to consider yourself a good dancer. It’s completely fine if you think you are a terrible dancer, have no rhythm, two left feet, etc.
By getting us out of our heads and into our bodies, this workshop gives improvisers access to more attentive, connected scene work by helping them:
- Work completely in the moment
- Make their partners look not just good, but spectacular
- Gain confidence in making clear, bold offers
- Take their “yes and” to the next level by finding greater wells of trust, receptiveness, and responsiveness in themselves
- Communicate and listen with their whole self - body, mind and soul

Scream Scenes: Improvised Horror
with Chris Griswold
Thurs, June 5, 2 pm - 4:45 pm
Embrace the thrills and chills of horror genres, from slashers to haunted houses. Develop skills in edits, suspense, and collaborative storytelling.
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Here's Your Banana! Now What?
with Sami Haeli
Thurs, June 5, 2 pm - 4:45 pm
In improv, we often get one-word suggestions like "banana" — and often, the first line of the scene is, "Here's your banana!"... and then everything stalls. This workshop is about breaking that pattern. We'll explore how to take simple, seemingly narrow suggestions and open them up into full, dynamic scenes — like a heartfelt visit to Grandma (banana bread!) or the final mile of a marathon (banana fuel!). Improvisers of all experience levels will learn to tap into deeper creative wells, build richer worlds, and discover surprising, meaningful scenes from even the most basic prompts.
Fri, June 6
Improvising with Puppets
with Jason Kelts, Alex Timmis, and Amy Nolte
TWO-DAY WORKSHOP: Fri & Sat, June 6-7, 10 am - 1 pm
Join Electric City Puppets for a crash course in puppetry where you’ll learn the skills to make the most ordinary inanimate objects come to life with movement and techniques that you can apply to your own performances! We’ll also share our insights on how to meet the unique challenges of improvising with a puppet on stage.
Mocumentary
with Diana Brown
Fri, June 6, 10 am - 1 pm
We'll shine a light on a hobby or pastime of the audience's choosing and the people that embrace it. Elevating the mundane to the sublime. Playing in the style of Christopher Guest movies like Best in Show.
All experience levels welcome.
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Very Silly and Quite Sincere
with Michael Rogers
Fri, June 6, 10 am - 1 pm
A split focus between the absurdly stupid and intentionally grounded nature of improvisation. In this workshop we will work to root ourselves in dumb/silly choices and sincere connections that foster playful scenework, joy in your own improv, and an escape from the clever critic in our heads.
Improvising Shakespeare
with Sami Haeli & Meghan Wolff
TWO-DAY WORKSHOP: Fri & Sat, June 6-7, 2 pm - 4:45 pm
This workshop will cover all the basics you need to improvise the Bard’s work as though you’ve stepped right out of the 16th century and into an improv scene! We’ll get familiar with Shakespeare’s work, then explore and play with some of the basic building blocks, including wild metaphors, bold monologues, and passionate characters. On the second day we'll dig into advanced metaphor and simile, working with the historic and mythological sources Will drew from to inform both his language and his stories. From there we’ll move on to playing with the shape and tone of Shakespeare’s work, and we’ll explore how your own interests and values can shape your stories and your shows.
This workshop isn’t just for those interested in improvising Shakespeare. It’s also for anyone who wants to explore how presentation and delivery can change an audience’s experience of your show, for anyone interested in using improv to explore another art they love, or for anyone looking to shake up their improv with a new approach to scenework.
The workshop leads up to a showcase performance in the festival on Saturday at 5 pm. Everyone from the workshop is encouraged to join the showcase, but it is not required.
Connection in a Second, Deep from the Start
with Aden & Eric Nepom
Fri, June 6, 2 pm - 4:45 pm
Discover instant ways to already be deeper in the scene or relationship from lights up in this 3-hour Improv Workshop. A lot of 'discovering together' takes the unfortunate form of offer surfing until we find something we like or want to play with. Learn what it means to start in the middle with history and strong emotion-driven choices—with a few verbal tricks built in to help kickstart the habit building. Would this workshop finally bring to an end the dreaded transaction scene?? I sure hope so!! Or at the very least, maybe these transactions can have immediate stakes attached.
Joyful Bootcamp
with Ruby Willmann
Fri, June 6, 2 pm - 4:45 pm
Bring some joy and bring a towel for this Joyful Diagnosis Bootcamp! We will do scene work, some montages, and you’ll get straightforward feedback on what might be hurting you and where you could start pushing your improv!
This will be a fast-paced, straightforward workshop where you'll get immediate feedback. Don't worry, there will be plenty of fun too!
Sat, June 7
Mess with the Bridge!
with Maria Nally
Sat, June 7, 10 am - 1 pm
We know the bridge can be used for the “what if” - an alternate perspective in a song, but that’s only the beginning. Bridges can be used for environmental interaction, dance breaks, sound effects, embodying a gift to the fullest, time jumps, epilogues, narration, or even doing the thing we’ve been singing about!
This workshop is for players who have been doing musical improv for more than six months.
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Staging and Visual Storytelling
with Neco Pacheaco
Sat, June 7, 10 am - 1 pm
Utilizing 20 years of scripted theater training, Neco will show you how to bring dynamic stage pictures to your improv. Utilizing the visual story telling techniques of stage pictures makes your work more dynamic, playful, and dramatic!
The Power of You
with Betse Green
Sat, June 7, 2 pm - 4:45 pm
Have you lost your character and your character’s point of view in a scene? Do you defer to your scene partner asking a lot of questions that stagnate the scene? Do you talk too much and not use your body to inform your character? Do you struggle with playing a talking head and standing at the “Improv 11” (front center with your scene partner)? Come prepared to work on these tools using the Power of You and what you can bring to the scene.
By the end of the workshop, you’ll have additional tools for your toolbox including: Finding your unique voice using verbal, physical and emotional choices; New ways of using the entire stage for more dynamic scenes; How to make supportive, creative choices that bring out the Power of You that will delight and engage your scene partner.
Sun, June 8
Hot Under the Collar
with Rhiannon Jenkins
Sun, June 8, 10 am - 1 pm
This class will teach you how to discover your hot and sexy self on stage. With a focus on fun, consent, and building confidence, students will practice flirting, creating intimate scenes, and finding your unique brand of hotness.
Musical Solos
with Phil Geurin
Sun, June 8, 10 am - 1 pm
A single voice can fill the stage.
Improvised solos invite us to stand still, to breathe, and to listen for what wants to be sung. There’s a kind of truth that only appears when the music has space to unfold—unshared, unhurried, unhidden.
In this workshop, you’ll explore how to create improvised songs that feel personal, grounded, and emotionally resonant. Whether it’s joy, grief, love, or absurdity, the solo gives you permission to linger in it—just you and the music.
Previous improv musical experience recommended.
Housing
There are many nearby hotels and B&Bs in the South Kingstown and Narragansett area. We also have some community homestay options with locals available with advance notice!
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Are you a Rhode Islander interested in hosting some amazing improvisers? Every year we need kind local folks to help us house our visiting friends! Reach out to Maggie Cady at cady@thecontemporarytheater.com for info!
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Travel
We are located in Wakefield, Rhode Island in beautiful South County.
Driving: We are 20 minutes off of I-95 at 327 Main Street, Wakefield, RI 02879.
Train: Kingston Station on the Northeast Corridor of Amtrak is 15 minutes from the theater. Wickford Station on the commuter rail from Boston is 15 minutes from the theater. We will have transportation from the stations available if you let us know your arrival time.
Air: Providence T.F. Green Airport is half an hour from the theater, and Boston Logan Airport is an hour and a half from the theater. We will have transportation from the Providence Airport available if you are traveling within certain timeframes at the beginning and end of the festival. (It's harder for us to get transportation in the middle of the festival because we're all busy at workshops and shows!)