IMPROFEST workshop: Approaches to Longform Improvisation - Joe Bill (USA)

Improfest Extended (a part of Improfest 2025)

Approaches to Longform Improvisation

In this workshop I will have you work through some of the basic ideas
that are explored in American Style Longform. This will be a mix of
both some quick demonstration AND working through things
according to the interests of the people in the workshop We’ll start
by covering ideas around Deconstructing Source Scenes and
Monologues. Then we’ll move to alternate sources of openings that I
use when I direct including Invocation, Daisy Chain, Scene Painting
and Interview/Documentary starts. Finally I’ll show you the Hexagon
that can be the shape that all longform and Narrative can fall into and
how to recognize patterns that emerge and then consider those
patterns in both Narrative Brain and Organic or Harold Brain. Students
are welcome to come to the workshop with questions about specific
format shapes and I’ll do my best to address those as well. This is a 3
hour redux of a full day workshop so I will let the interests of the
people in the room be the driver for the things that we cover.

Bio:
Joe Bill is widely regarded as one of the best teachers of Improvised Storytelling and
Scenic, Longform & Duo Improvisation in North America today. He is one of the
founding members of Annoyance Theater Chicago where, for 12 years, he performed
in and/or directed more than 60 different shows. Joe is ½ of the first touring Improv Duo
in North America, BASSPROV, created in 2000 with Mark Sutton. They are still
performing at Festivals and theater engagements globally 24 years later. Since then
Joe’s been touring all over the world teaching, directing, and improvising with several
other amazing Duo Partners like Patti Stiles (Our Play), Jill Bernard (SCRAM!),
Stacey Hallal (Stacey & Joe, We Slept Together) Lee White (Paradigm), Heather
Urquart (Blues Hammer), Felipe Ortiz (Les Disciplinos) and David Razowsky
(Razowsky & Bill), ALL in different, original formats and styles. He's touring his solo
scripted show, written as he successfully took on and survived surgeries & chemo
associated with 3 different cancers from late 2022 to early 2024, Joe Bill: Surviving
Consciousness, (Lessons learned from Cancer, LSD & Michael Jordan) all over the
U.S. and the world. In April 2024 he debuted it at the Auckland Imrprov Festival in
Auckland, NZ. He has since preformed it at Festivals and Theaters across the USA and
made his first recording of it at Unexpected Productions in Seattle in January 2025.
He is the creator and host of Story Chain, a virtual (and now sometimes live!), 90-
minute, international story sharing event that he developed in 2020 during the
Pandemic. He was the Director of Corporate Training at iO Chicago for 15 years and
started training and performing there in 1985. He was a Guest Artist in Residence at
The Second City Training Center & Conservatory where he taught intensives in Duo
Improvisation and Improvisation for Actors for 10 years.

Joe has taught and performed on every continent on earth, except for Antarctica which
remains on his bucket list. For now though, he is delighted to be teaching and
performing this weekend in OKC!

(Workshopen kommer att hållas på engelska då Improfest är en internationell improvisationsteater-festival med inbjudna improvisatörer från hela världen.)