Level 1: Intro To Improv

Spontaneity. Playfulness. Listening. Trust. Honesty.

Learn the basic fundamentals of improv comedy and meet cool new people in the process! Our courses are designed to help students unlock their inner creativity in a fun and supportive environment. Whether you want to learn more about the comedic process to become a better writer/actor/performer, or you just want to loosen up and improve your communication skills while becoming more comfortable in your own skin, the lessons of improv we teach work to build your confidence both on-stage and off. This class will teach you how to celebrate who you are and to find truth in comedy through a series of improv and acting exercises that focus on honesty, spontaneity, playfulness, and saying “yes, and.” Find out when the next classes begin by clicking register!

KEYLAN HAYNES is an Austin based actor and a graduate of ColdTowne Theater. He has taught in ColdTowne’s wonderful youth program, Excused Absence, and is a part of the B. Iden Payne award-winning improv troupe Sugar Water Purple. He co-directed The Emma Dilemma and performs every Sunday with his Harold troupe All Night All Night All Night.

Level 06: Creating a Form

Prequisite: must have taken a Level 5 improv class at ColdTowne

In Level 6, you'll take everything you've been learning for the past year and apply it to creating and performing your class's own form. You'll also get a series of showcases at the theater that run concurrently with the class and culminate in a graduation show and ceremony. You get a certificate and everything!

This class includes a 4 showcase performances including a graduation performance.

ABBY LINCOLN is an improviser, actor, writer, and teacher from Austin, Texas. Abby holds a BFA in Acting from Shenandoah Conservatory, which is where she began improvising with her college team, "The Loaf." Abby is a graduate of ColdTowne Theater and has been featured on house teams Stool Pigeon and Yard Sale. You may also recognize her from ColdTowne's mainstage as she has played in shows like "The Emma Dilemma", "Game Night", "Dinner for Six", "Express Yourself", and "Toxic Chakra Presents: Everything Will Be Ok." Abby has been a secondary school theater arts and English teacher for the past 8 years, but recently quit to pursue her dream of not being exploited.

Prerequisite: Level 2 or higher in an established improv school.

Whether your goal is solid storytelling or pure chaos, the root of any good improv show is solid, two-person scene work. This 8-week intensive focuses on the fundamentals of creating believable, lived-in universes, giving players the tools to answer the audience’s burning question: “Why the fuck are we watching this?” Players will work on making active choices with a deep commitment to honesty and listening and will drill simple techniques to create interesting scene starts every single time, with a heavy focus on building powerful and emotionally dynamic relationships between the characters and creating fun, playable games. The intensive will also include plenty of individual feedback and diagnostics, tons of stage time, and in-depth homework assignments designed to chisel you into hardened improv steel.

MICHAEL JASTROCH is a comedic actor, writer, and improv instructor, formerly based out of Austin, TX, and presently living his “Van Life” dream of traveling the country and working out of Walmart Parking lots. 

As one of the founders of ColdTowne Theater and a member of the seminal improv groups ColdTowne and The Frank Mills, Michael has won several awards for his work, including “Best Comedy Group ” in the Austin Chronicle Reader’s poll and the B. Iden Payne award for “Outstanding Improv Ensemble.” His improv and sketch comedy podcast Victrola! was named one of Austin’s “Best Comedy Podcasts” and nominated by Austin Chronicle readers as one of the city’s best comedy groups.

Michael has taught improv comedy for the last seventeen years and has been nominated and won “Best Improv Teacher” and “Best Improv Coach” a whole bunch. He’s taught his improv workshops all over the country, including at the Magnet Theater in NYC, the Oberlin College Improv Festival, The Oklahoma Improv Festival, the Phoenix Improv Festival, The Dallas Comedy Fest, The Alaska State Improv Fest, and the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival in Chapel Hill. 

Level 1: Intro To Improv

Spontaneity. Playfulness. Listening. Trust. Honesty.

Learn the basic fundamentals of improv comedy and meet cool new people in the process! Our courses are designed to help students unlock their inner creativity in a fun and supportive environment. Whether you want to learn more about the comedic process to become a better writer/actor/performer, or you just want to loosen up and improve your communication skills while becoming more comfortable in your own skin, the lessons of improv we teach work to build your confidence both on-stage and off. This class will teach you how to celebrate who you are and to find truth in comedy through a series of improv and acting exercises that focus on honesty, spontaneity, playfulness, and saying “yes, and.” Find out when the next classes begin by clicking register!

AMY KNOP (she/her) is an experienced teacher and prolific performer, producer, and director of improv at ColdTowne since 2016 -- including as B. Iden Payne-nominated director of "My Own Worst Enemy", "It's Britney, Bitch", and producer of sold-out runs of "Angola," "Old Love," "The Rose," and more. She has toured with Prayer Circle Comedy (Denver Improv Fest, Dallas Comedy Festival, Big Little Comedy Fest), performed in multiple ColdTowne mainstages, co-captains Fallout's Saturday night house team, and been managing director of Austin Sketch Fest since 2019. She is a graduate of ColdTowne Conservatory and Advanced Studies programs and performs every Friday with "Austin Chronicle Best Of" nominees "A Very Special Episode." She loves welcoming new performers and showrunners into the Austin improv community!

Advanced Scene Work

Prerequisite: must have taken a Level 2 improv class at ColdTowne

Strong group work, or “group mind,” is the focus of Level 3, where students take a deeper look at their scenework and begin to create shows that are more than just a montage of disconnected scenes. While continuing to strengthen and build on the lessons of past levels, various storytelling techniques and other skills are introduced to help students go from improvising a single scene to creating an entire longform improv show. This class includes a student performance!

PRESTON PENTECOST is the Technical Director of Coldtowne Theater and has been improvising since 2017. He is a former member of the house harold team Porch Cat, and currently performs with A Very Special Episode every Friday.

Level 2: Scene Work Strategies

Prerequisite: Must have taken an improv class at ColdTowne or elsewhere.

Strengthen your two person scenes using characters, relationships, and finding & playing “The Game.”

Building on the fundamentals from Level 01, students will begin to practice skills and techniques that strengthen their scenes and characters. Concepts will be introduced to help create deeper characters and relationships more quickly, while keeping things fun! Students will learn how to identify patterns within their scenes to create “The Game”: the engine that drives comedy in an improvised scene or sketch. This class includes a student performance!

KRISTIN HENN is a proud graduate of the ColdTowne Conservatory. Committed to continued training, she has taken additional classes and attended intensives regularly since 2009, including with The Annoyance Theater, IO Chicago, Improv Utopia,  and visiting performers  and practitioners from around the country. She holds a BFA in Directing and an MA in Theatre History and Criticism, both from Texas State University.

Intro To Sketch Writing: Character, Game, and the Absurd
(proof of vaccination required)

In this 6-week course you’ll learn the essentials of sketch comedy that will sharpen your writing skills and help you find your own distinctive comedic voice. You will finish this coures with the tools you need to develop characters, premise, Game, and relationship dynamics that get your audiences laughing early and will leave them wanting more!

DAVE BUCKMAN has directed, taught and performed at some of the world’s leading improvisational comedy institutions. After several years studying and teaching improv in Chicago, Dave served as Artistic Director of Boom Chicago in Amsterdam for 2 years, where he was fortunate to work with and direct some of the funniest people working in television and web-based sketch comedy today. After Europe, Dave worked as a director and teacher at The Second City in Chicago. He has directed MainStage shows at ColdTowne: Bigfoot, the musical, Austin Translation, Barney Biller Dark Night, The Roast of St, Nick, Eye for an iPhone and Shanty Town Lake. The Second City: Who’s yer Baghdadi?” (Cleveland), World’s Gone Wild” (Touring Company) and Deficit Comedy Jam (Touring Company) Boom Chicago: Your Privacy is our Business, Europe, We’ve Created a Monster, The Future is Here and it is Slightly Annoying. In 2002, he directed “Boom Chicago: RockStars” only the second stage-swap with The Second City’s Main Stage in its 50 year history.