Upright Citizens Brigade Improvisation and Sketch Comedy Training Center

The UCB Theatre Training Center bases their curriculum around the idea that all quality individual comedic scenes focus in on one central comedic idea – this idea is referred to as “The Game” of the scene.

This course will focus on teaching students how to use the idea of “The Game” to create their improvised scenes. Students will be taught how to identify “games” within their scenes, and how to use the concept of heightening to properly play out their scenes once they have them. (Heightening is finding new ways to make your scenes get funnier from start to finish.) The class will heavily focus on learning how to use patterns to fill out comedic scenes based around one central “game.”

Students will also be introduced to the idea of “second beats,” or returning to scenes, characters, and concepts from earlier in an improvised piece.

This course meets for 8 sessions that are each 3 hours long. At the end of the course, students will take part in a class performance, generally held at the UCB Theatre. Graduation is also contingent upon students seeing at least two improvised shows at the UCB Theater before the end of the course.

Class Size: 16 Students
Admission to 301 after the completion of this course is not guaranteed. Students will be judged on their application of concepts that they have learned in Improv 101 & 201. The Training Center will send placement notification to students within 10 days of the Improv 201 graduation performance. Students may not enroll in Improv 301 before receiving this notification.