Get ready for a weekend of unscripted comedy and non-stop laughs at the Rivertowns Improv Fall Festival where you can see 18 incredible improvacts from across the Hudson Valley, NYC, and beyond. Headlining this year’s festival are national pioneers of puppet improv The Josh and Tamra Show (UCB, Jim Henson Muppeteer), Capital Region comedy titans The Mop and Bucket Company, and award-winning crowd favorite Hudson Valley Improv.
Choose Your Pass:
Friday-Only Pass: $35
Saturday-Only Pass: $35
Full Weekend Pass: $60 (Best value—all-access entry to every show!)
Grab your pass now and join us for the ultimate celebration of unscripted theater!
Do you love puppets? Do you love long-form improv? This workshop teaches puppetry manipulation, character development and long-form puppet performance improvisation. Learn the basics of hand and rod “Muppet style” puppetry, vocal characterization, and improvisational scene work with your new puppet character.
Students will have a better understanding of how to become the character they are playing and will be able to apply these teachings to their work in the world of acting, improv, puppetry and beyond. The experimentation of puppetry can be used as a means to free the artist or performer and help create interesting characters. You will have a blast and walk away with your very own practice puppet and a new found skill. Open to all.
In this class, Hudson Valley Improv founder and actor Samantha Jones (Rabbit Rabbit/Netflix, Murder at the End of the World/FX, etc.) introduces her in-depth acting technique designed specifically for improvisers. This class is a crash course of her signature moves — the same ones she uses on stage and in front of the camera — to bring a performance that's not only deeply funny, but unforgettable.
Samantha Jones is an actor and the founder of Hudson Valley Improv, a conservatory-style training center built on her original Improv Empowerment methodology. With over 30 years of experience as an improv direct/teacher, Sam has developed a distinct approach to training that bridges serious acting technique with the spontaneity of improv — equipping performers to bring depth, truth, and unforgettable presence to every scene.
So often in longform formats, we find ourselves rushing to make something happen, reaching for a hilarious or outrageous plot twist, driving the scene (or being driven), or worrying about how various plotlines will come together. The secret to the 2x2x2 format is to train your brain to leave all of that behind, and allow an intertwined world to emerge from a series of randomly paired, 2-person scenes, each inspired by a different one-word suggestion. In this workshop, we'll work the three essential muscles of this magical format: radical listening, intuitive trust, and co-discovery. Participants will also have the opportunity to try extended scenes with side-coaching to help them slow down and truly co-create their piece of the larger story.
While on stage, your brain and body are alive and full of energy. As you play, your energy builds and needs somewhere to go. It can be easy to let that energy take over your mind, your words, or your feet and lose sight of the scene and the world you and your scene partner are creating together. In this workshop, we will work on focusing that energy on slowing down, connecting with our environment, emotions, and scene partner to create beautiful, organic scenework.
Discover the thrill of commanding the stage alone. Led by Michael Short—Blind Tiger’s Artistic Director and creator of his own solo show Legion—this workshop teaches you how to instantly spin up multi-character scenes using rapid physical and vocal shifts.
The best part? Solo improv is the ultimate training ground for ensemble play. By mastering self-reliance and sharpening your comedic radar, you’ll return to your team as a fearless, hyper-adaptable scene partner.
Populate the stage, trust your gut, and become your own favorite cast. All experience levels welcome!
The workshop will utilize techniques developed by Annie Loui in devised theatre and contact improv with the purpose of creating grounded meaningful connection with a scene partner. Players will be encouraged to move the “mask” beyond the face and encapsulate the entirety of the nervous system. The result of exercises in this workshop promote narrative as a bi-product, meaning when the connection between improvisers leads, the story naturally unfolds in the imagination and the inner play.
Step into the fast-paced world of unscripted comedy with the teen performers of CACA! Featuring an extraordinary cast of local high school students, this showcase highlights the next generation of comedic talent as they take the stage without a safety net.
The BackyardAsians are here to perform kid-ified musical improv FOR ADULTS, inspired by TV shows you grew up with: elements of Nick Jr. and PBS Kids with just a hint of Adult Swim. Through song, dance and puppetry, they teach essential life lessons like how to spell, how to dance inside a jail cell, and how to set someone on fire. Debuting as part of Shoes Off: All Asian Improv at Second City NYC, the BackyardAsians have since graced the stages of Asian Comedy Fest, Brooklyn Comedy Collective's Fun & Dumb Improv Festival, and AF Comedy Fest in Los Angeles. Featuring Christian Masinsin, Marcy Lin, Michelle Chu, and Xuan Zhao
Welcome to Location: The Musical, the fully improvised show where a single audience suggestion unlocks an entire world. Whether it’s a bustling airport, a 24-hour diner, or a quiet library, an eclectic cast of characters intersects, collides, and navigates life in one shared setting. When emotions run too deep for mere words, the cast bursts into fully improvised, show-stopping songs! Every storyline, lyric, and melody is created live right before your eyes. Featuring Andrew Newberg, Jordan Balaban, Danielle Purdy, Brian Bagot, Natassia Velez, Michael Short, Ania Kowalczuk, Erin Sullivan, and Ian Kelleher
Up to No God takes a life-changing moment from an audience members life and uses it as inspiration for a fast-paced and action-packed improv set, using the "Eventé" form to show how our lives could go so differently depending on the choices we make--or don't make. Featuring John Kennedy, Emily Riggins, Lia Fietz, Steven Moity, Joe Mourad, Hank Wolverton, and Mary Lane Townsend
Performing a 25-minute feat of strength, Dance Factory invites the audience to pick out one team member and one action that they'll have to perform in every scene, supported and edited by the team. It's a combo of long- and short-form that delivers to veteran and novice audiences alike! Featuring Brent Williams, Tess Frazer, Davonte Smith, Alex Kornfeld, Chloe Prasinos, Matty Truzynski, Heidi Waldermeir, and Ha Cao
Born out of the multitude of Blind Tiger classes between them, Brick Frisbee (and their one brain cell) is ready to take on any crowd suggestion with a combination of wit, agility, and pizzazz. Brick Frisbee has a little bit of everything - Korean War stories! Eastern European witches! A monkey playing cymbals! - and, most importantly, a love of improv comedy. Featuring Bex Gavidia, Amelia Zaino, Craig Colavito, Danielle Purdy, Heather Kendall, Jordan Balaban, and Alaina Smith
For 27 years, The Josh and Tamra Show, pioneers of puppet improv, have toured the U.S. and beyond, headlining improv festivals and teaching their unique blend of comedy. Born at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City in 1999, their show combines puppetry with long-form improvisation. Starring seasoned long-form improvisers Josh Cohen, a Jim Henson Muppeteer and Tamra Malaga, a character actress. Each performance begins with an audience suggestion and unfolds into a hilarious, one-of-a-kind, puppet-filled adventure. (May contain adult language and situations.) Featuring Josh Cohen and Tamra Malaga
The Duke Comedy Theatre is a Hudson Valley nonprofit proving that people will laugh at anything: bad jobs, baffling text messages, and total strangers' most humiliating days included. The Duke turns real-life absurdities into fully improvised comedy. Their mission: help Hudson Valley adults discover their voice, build connection, and heal through the joy of comedy, because sometimes the fastest way to feel better is to say "yes, and." Featuring Michelle Lieblein, Kendra Leigh Landon, Priscilla Candelaria, Mariah Warren, Nicole Syrlik, Kristy LaRocca, and Patricia Rau.
Unicorn Parade creates an improvised play, weaving a narrative tale through one location, and exploring all kinds of characters with hilarious antics! Featuring Caitlin Canahai, Sarah Comfort, Amy Feder, Jack Gembala, Lindsay Kustich, Tony Messina, Josh Verby, and Trey Wydysh
Ever wish you could erase your student loans, that text you shouldn’t have sent, or the pile of laundry on your ‘workout’ chair? Musical Improv team Once Removed takes your suggestions of things you want gone and turns them into a fully improvised musical. Featuring a powerhouse cast of veteran performers, we’re here to help you sing your troubles away. Featuring Harvey Chipkin, Michelle Chu, Matt Cohen, Miguel Fernandez, Alicia Lau, Michael Lenmark, Dee Sentino, Catherine Stahl, Tim Steckler, and Joan Tarbutton
It's Off the Record: An Improvised Musical Documentary! Come with us on a journey through a town in crisis as our team of crack investigators/improvisers gets to the bottom of each case... through song. There will be laughs. There will be harmonies. There will be Keith Morrison impressions. For fans of Law & Order, Dateline, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats! Featuring Sydney Amanuel, Jackie O'Shaughnessy, Annie Raczko, Sydney Roslin, Mikaila Schmitt, Claire Shiell, Catherine Stahl, Riley Stanzione, Savannah Walters, and Kylia Williams
Get ready for a delightfully bizarre night of comedy with I Love Your Grandma, one of the premier house teams at Blind Tiger Improv. Packed with top-tier talent from Second City, ComedySportz, Magnet Theater, and The PIT, this ensemble specializes in the wonderfully weird. Featuring Ben Masur, Andrew Newberg, Bex Gavidia, Jordan Balaban, Erin Sullivan, Danielle Purdy, and Jennifer Eolin
Half-an-Hour Town! A simple audience suggestion conjures up an entire cast of characters and the town they live in. Every town has its drama and secrets. We'll explore how all these imaginary lives cross over, connect, and collide! Featuring Maria Ayoob, Charlie Owens, Winnie Ashby, Hayes Fields, Jason Burke, Jennifer Lavenhar, Riley Hart, and Walt Batycki
Award-winning touring company, Hudson Valley Improv, storms the stage with LOST IN PLACE. Built from an audience-suggested location, this original long-form explores a space gone slightly off-course—where people and objects reveal surprising connections and the place itself becomes the main character. Featuring Samantha Jones, Michael Withall, Jennifer Farmer, Lou Denise, Susan Gray, Jamie Ashlaw, Patrick Domery, Heather Dell'Amore, Anne Girvin, and Liz Saydah
Mopco is the premier improvisational theatre company of New York State's Capital Region. 2x2x2 throws its cast into randomly paired, rotating duos, each scene sparked by a single audience suggestion. Over the course of the show, a world emerges: relationships, loves, conflicts, hopes and disappointments revealed. At the last minute, somehow it all comes together, the way a good movie or play does. (Or, maybe not—this is improv on the high-wire. But usually, it's amazing.) Featuring Michael Burns, Kat Koppett, Jennifer Lavenhar, Maria Ayoob, Alex Rabinowitz, and Drew D'Amelia
Expect the unexpected as top-tier improvisers—veterans of Second City, UCB, the Magnet, and the Annoyance—gather for a chaotic, one-night-only collision of comedy styles. This heavy-hitting ensemble is meeting on stage for the very first time! Blending decades of coast-to-coast experience with the electric energy of total strangers making magic in real time, they’ll deliver patient relationship play, rapid-fire montages, and pure, unpredictable gold. Featuring Don Romaniello, Michael Short, Stacey Venzel, Jordan Fried, Heather Marie Vitale, and Rob Lowenthal.
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