Picture this: it’s elementary school. Your teacher marches you and your classmates in a single file into the gymnasium. It’s time for one of the least excruciatingly boring assemblies of the year — the travelling semi-improvisational theatre troupe.
The play is about making friends, helping others, or maybe climate change. Your classmates get pulled out of the audience and have to do something silly in front of the whole school. One of two things happens when they sit down — they brag to their friends, or they cry.
If that’s your last memory of watching improv, you can’t be blamed if you’ve avoided it since. But you’re all grown up now, and Calgary has tons of quality improv that won’t leave you scarred for life.
WHAT TO EXPECT
Step into the BLOX Arts Centre downtown for your Kinkonauts show, and the first thing you’ll hear is, “If you sit in the front row, you might not get called on.”
Even though the venue looks like your high school’s black box theatre, no one’s going to force you to do anything you don’t want to do.
“When people come to improv, we will ask for a suggestion from them to start the show, or as the show goes on,” said Andy Stefanato, Kinkonauts’ executive artistic director. “That’s always based on what the audience is willing to give. We’re never going to bring anybody up unwillingly on stage.”
At the top of the show, the host comes out on stage and delivers a debrief on what to expect from the evening. They’ll let you know what the format is going to look like, whether that’s long-form or short-form improv, and whether any improv games (like you may have done in high school drama class) are involved.
“We focus on what’s called ‘long-form improv.’ So it does tend to follow a little bit more of a story throughout the entire show,” said Stefanato.
Unlike a show at the Jubilee or downtown at Werklund Centre, it’s difficult to predict how long a show is going to run, or when you’ll get an intermission for that much-needed bathroom break. Fortunately, you can trust the staff at the back of the room to cue performers on when to start wrapping up a scene. For most venues, plan for a night out that lasts an hour and a half to two hours.
“Everything you see is so genuine because it’s coming from the moment.”
The etiquette rules are less stringent than a standard play. “It’s a little bit different than a theatre performance where you’re expected to laugh a little bit, or react emotionally a bit, but you don’t want to draw attention to it,” said Stefanato. “This is closer to a comedy vibe, where we want people to be laughing out loud if something moves them to do that, or respond emotionally if they feel that way. It’s a louder audience than some people might be expecting.”
Bring your big laughs and feel free to cringe audibly at a joke that may cross a line. When you hear something shocking for the first time, so do the performers — your reaction may even influence the scene.
“Everything you see is so genuine because it’s coming from the moment and to an extent, the actor’s genuine responses to things,” said Stefanato. “A lot of the responses and reactions you see are very much coming from both the actor and the character.”
IT’S NOT KAYFABE
If you catch an improv show on a good night, it can feel like the actors are working from a script. The jokes are too funny, the story makes too much sense, and the actors’ chemistry is just too good.
“Sometimes people do still think it’s all planned,” said Dennis Cahill, artistic director and founding member of Loose Moose Theatre. “If the improvisation is really good, it can almost look scripted. And of course, when it goes horribly wrong, it really does look like it was improvised.”
Loose Moose has been in the improv game for 48 years, running kids programming and evening shows for adults, typically working with short-form scenes and theatresports — quick improv games where audiences rate the performance. With all that time on the stage, the Loose Moose embraces when things go sideways.
“Failure is part of the creative process, and it’s on full display,” said Cahill. “If you’re watching a car race and one of the cars crashes, they don’t turn the camera away. Because failure is interesting.”
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It’s funny when things go wrong. The audience laughs, then the performers get back on track. But there’s a fine line between things going wrong in a funny way and the audience suffering second-hand embarrassment on par with watching the UK version of The Office.
Loose Moose works with their actors to ensure no audience member experiences that feeling.
“Fear is the thing that we’re constantly working against,” said Cahill. “Most people do not like being stared at, and part of that is because there’s a fear of failure … But if you can remove the fear from the performer, then they’re able to perform much better. An improviser without fear is a wonderful thing.”
MY SHOW IS ON
New kid on the improv block, Winging It!, entered the scene earlier this year, helmed by Andrew G. Cooper, artistic director and the show’s “game master.”
“The basic concept of the show is that it’s a fantasy adventure group where heroes go off on a quest … as they’re navigating through the world, they do some silly scenes and play some silly games,” said Cooper.
As the host of the show, Cooper guides the actors through an adventure with improv prompts and games. It combines the long-form style of Kinkonauts with the staple short-form and theatre games of Loose Moose. A few games also involve bringing volunteers on stage.
Interaction with the audience is a big part of Winging It! Even fans can influence the next part of the heroes’ adventures by voting on social media.
“It’s like episode television,” said Cooper. “If someone comes to just one, they will get a full beginning, middle and end… If people come to more than one show, they’re rewarded by seeing a larger story in a larger world.”
Winging It!’s gamified aspects set it apart from other improv shows in the city. When an actor wants to do something in the story, Cooper deems a challenge: they roll an enormous black-and-red 20-sided dice and improvise the outcome based on the result. To add another wrinkle, audience members can purchase reroll tokens from the concessions booth and use them after any roll, helping or hindering the heroes for a triumphant result.
“It’s one of the basic tenets of improv. It’s about being in the moment and accepting offers from the other people on the stage,” said Cooper. “This dice helps the improvisers stay on their toes.”
WHAT’S ON
Kinkonauts
The Kinkonauts season runs until May 2026, with a short break over the holidays, so there’s plenty of time to laugh. This November, catch the tail end of Kinkonauts’ Halloween-themed show series Last Laugh, an improvised slasher where performers try to unmask a killer.
The holiday series Actually, I Love You kicks off on November 28. It’s a cozy romance perfect for folks who love to curl up for Hallmark movie marathons.
Check out kinkonauts.com for more details and tickets.
Loose Moose
Every Saturday evening at Loose Moose is the Secret Impro Show, packed with short-form improv and theatresports, which Loose Moose does best.
If you’ve got kids in your life you’d like to take to a show, Loose Moose is also running The 3 Mooseketeers from November 1 to 23. If a kid-friendly improv doesn’t sound like your alley, Cahill assures, “We have lots of adults that seem to be just as excited by coming to the theatre as their kids.”
Grab tickets over at loosemoose.com.
Winging It!
You’ll have the chance to catch a couple of Winging It! shows this month, on November 15 and 29. See the ongoing adventures of Marius Brightheart the paladin, Peach Tea the magical girl, and secretly-super-buff old lady Belinda Boggs. Even if you’ve never played a game of D&D before, all you need to love this show is an appreciation for laughter and the fantastical.
Pick up your tickets at wingingit.ca, and head to @wingingitshow on Instagram if you want to influence the story you see before you go.
