DO IMPROV GOOD - A Master Class with Kevin Gillese
Do Improv Good is a deep dive into what makes improv truly shine—authenticity, emotional truth, contrast, and commitment. Led by Kevin Gillese, former artistic director of Dad’s Garage, this workshop blends philosophy and practice to help you stop doing scenes and start living them. Come ready to play, reflect, and do improv good.
Level 5 - Competitive Short-form Improv
Our level 5 improv training is a capstone to the Dad’s Garage improv courses and features advanced exercises and, in this case, short form games similar to those performed in TheatreSports. This course culminates in a live showcase.
Level 5 - The Spokane
Our level 5 improv training is a capstone to the Dad’s Garage improv courses - this course focuses on long-form narrative emphasis by exploring The Spokane format. This course culminates in a live showcase.
Stand Up Comedy Classes
Students will learn how to generate their own material, build their own jokes, and act on stage by using the principles of improv. In addition to classes, students will meet for writing groups to refine the skills introduced in class.
Level 5 - Long Form Narrative
Our level 5 improv training is a capstone to the Dad’s Garage improv courses and features advanced exercises and long-form narrative emphasis. This course culminates in a live showcase.
Burlesque Performance Series at Dad’s Garage
This burlesque performance series is designed to give participants the knowledge, skills, and confidence to build a solo burlesque performance.
Level 3
Level 3 focuses on narrative techniques and expanding the skills learned in previous levels. Learn to see a scene through to its full potential and dig deeper into the details that make them special.
Level 2
Level 2 applies the skills developed in level 1 to a broader understanding of narrative scene-based improvisation. This class emphasizes character creation, character relationships, and establishing basic narrative structures that apply to improvised theatre.
Level 4
Level 4 improv training emphasizes advanced games, narrative techniques, and onstage performance skills. This class culminates in a showcase for a live audience.
Sketch Level 3
Students will use the learned essential techniques from Sketch 1 and 2 to elevate sketch writing by writing from a distinct point of view, applying premise and game structure, utilizing improvisation to enhance the writing process, and exploring specific sketch structures.
Level 1
Level 1 teaches the basics of improv theory in relation to short form improv and what we do at Dad’s Garage. It is the foundation for our entire class system!
Free Preview Sketch Class
Join Dad's Garage for a free Sketch class and try it out for yourself.
Our experienced instructors will take you through an average class filled with games and silly exercises. You'll be able to ask questions, scratch the surface of learning sketch, and even make some new friends.
Free Preview Stand-up Comedy Class
Join Dad's Garage for a free Stand-up Comedy class, so you can have an opportunity to try it out for yourself.
Our experienced instructors will take you through an average class filled with games and silly exercises. You'll be able to ask questions, scratch the surface of learning Stand-up Comedy, and even make some new friends.
Free Preview Improv Class
Join Dad's Garage for a free improv class to try it out for yourself!
Our experienced instructors will take you through a standard class session filled with games and fun, silly exercises. You'll be able to ask questions, learn about the benefits of improv, and even make some new friends!
Free Preview Improv Class
Join Dad's Garage for a free improv class to try it out for yourself!
Our experienced instructors will take you through a standard class session filled with games and fun, silly exercises. You'll be able to ask questions, learn about the benefits of improv, and even make some new friends!
Level 5
Our level 5 improv training is designed to bring all of the work done in the previous levels together and emphasizes long form improv and onstage performance skills. This course culminates in a live showcase.
Scott Dikkers Workshop
Comedy impresario Scott Dikkers has built several seven-figure comedy enterprises, including The Onion, his comic strip Jim’s Journal, and his online training center How to Write Funny. He also performs on the college and corporate circuit and as a voice actor for video games, movies, and cartoons, including SNL’s TV Funhouse. In this special, one-time-only, 3-hour workshop, you’ll get a chance to meet and work with Scott to learn his repeatable, real-world strategies for creating your own show-biz opportunities in the comedy industry.
Freestyle Rap For Improvisers
Attendees will learn to access a larger array of rhymes, how to more effectively target those rhymes, stay in rhythm, & use their improved rap skills to enhance scenes and improv games. We'll work on the two primary approaches to freestyle rap and when to use each one. From rapping in gibberish, to breaking down "targeting rhyming", to telling a story in rap, to roasting a topic, this will be fun and challenging. The skills we work on translate to all musical improv, problem solving, public speaking, & comedy. Whether your background is improv, hip-hop, or cartography, this class is for you.
Rich Talarico Workshops
Rich Talarico is a Peabody® Award winner who boasts four Emmy® nominations, as well as four Writers Guild Award noms. Rich is a distinguished writer/producer known for his significant contributions to Key & Peele. Rich wrote K&P favorites Substitute Teacher, Racist Zombies, Karim and Jahar, Hatz, Teaching Center, Obama Greets, Black Ice and many more. Rich wrote and produced on some of the biggest comedy shows in late-night; MADtv, The Tonight Show w. Jay Leno, Saturday Night Live, and the critically acclaimed, Review. Rich is an alum of Chicago's Second City and has appeared in featured roles on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, MADtv, the feature film High Fidelity and A&W Root Beer's classic TV ad, "Mr. Dumass.” Talarico’s extensive experience in the comedy industry has made him a sought-after teacher, writer and consultant. — more at richtalarico.com
Kevin McDonald Workshops
Squeezing Comedy from Improv w/ Kevin McDonald - Saturday August 19th 12-4 PM
Kevin will get 4 students at a time to improvise a scene. When each scene is over, all the students and Kevin talk about how to make a scene from the improvised scene that was just done - how to build up the comedy, build on the characters and create a story for this new sketch, they're making. Then the students do the scene again, as a more prepared comedy sketch. At the end, we will do a big group improv(with everybody in the class), work on it and then make and an epic comedy sketch from it.
One Line Premise w/ Kevin McDonald - Sunday August 20 12-4 PM
Each student must bring in a one line premise for a comedy sketch like "What if a guy was $10 short of being a millionaire" and the group and Kevin break it down!
Workshops with Craig Cackowski
Craig Cackowski is an actor, improvisor and teacher based in Los Angeles.
He was involved with the iO and iO West (RIP) theaters from 1992-2018, and was the three-time winner of the Del Close Award as Teacher of the Year at iO West. He has played numerous improv festivals around the US with his long-running three-man troupe Dasariski (with Bob Dassie and Rich Talarico) and his duo Orange Tuxedo (with his wife Carla!). While in Chicago, he appeared in and co-wrote 5 revues for The Second City, and helped create such improv forms as JTS Brown and Close Quarters.
As an actor, he has been seen in recurring roles on such shows as Community, Veep, Drunk History, and Mindy Kaling’s Sex Lives Of College Girls (currently on HBOMax). He may be heard frequently on such podcasts as The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Kevin Pollak’s Alchemy This and his own podcast Craig’s List, in which he makes Carla watch his 100 favorite movies.
Improv For Actors
This is a class designed to support actors and help them become more comfortable with doing improv!