It seems almost anything can become improvisational theatre, if this year's Improvention program is anything to go by. The fifth International Festival of Unscripted Theatre & Comedy opens in Canberra on July 16 and ranges from a zombie musical to a consideration of what our furniture might say about us to a relationship drama - just to name a few of the 14 shows and events. And, of course, none of them are scripted.
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Artistic director Nick Byrne - who's been running improvisational theatre events in Canberra for 10 years - says it's the biggest impro festival in Australia.
"When PJ Williams and I began Impro ACT we were conscious of being a smaller city yet wedged between the two biggest cities,"
They wanted to give a national, - and international - experience to people here and worked hard to bring it about, helped by the fact that impro groups in Australia enjoy sharing their experiences. And the profile of the event grew.
"In past years we've had perfomers from every continent except Antarctica and probably someone's been there and would have to improvise!"
The heats of this year's Canberra Impro Theatre Challenge will be from July 16 to 19. In each heat, 10 improvisers will compete in an international tournament of spontaneity and the maestros who win each night will compete in the grand finale on July 20 to determine who is the ultimate maestro.
Also on closing night will be a special guest from the Netherlands, improviser and psychologist Kiki Hohnen, presenting Mullet.
Byrne says Mullet is a combination of short-form and long-form pieces dictated by key words.
"The performers do a range of short scenes until until someone hears something that strikes their fancy and calls out 'Mullet'!''
Then the moment is expanded into a long-form, 10-minute story until someone yells, "Call it!" and the cycle begins anew with a return to short-form pieces until someone calls out "Mullet!" again - and on it goes.
Byrne says this year's other international guest is American improviser and actor David Razowsky, who, among many other things, was a creative consultant on the improvisational TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway?.
"His trademark is performing a 50-minute duo show wherever he goes,'' Byne says.
For Improvention, Razowsky been teamed up with Glenn Hall, from Perth, with whom he's never worked, on Friday, July 18.
On the same night as Razowsky and Hall is Zombsical, directed by Tim Redmond from Melbourne, who's directed a couple of earlier impro musicals.
"The set-up is that there's a core cast of six who plead to the audience for their lives, in song. The audience will decide whether they will be killed or not. And there's a large cast of minor roles - the zombies."
Like the lyrics and the storyline, the music - "we'll have a band of at least four" - will be entirely improvised under music director Bryce Halliday, "the go-to accompanist for improv shows in Sydney",
It might sound like a particular challenge to create an improvised musical, but either the actors will take their cue from the chords being played or they will lead the song and the musicians will follow.
And even the zombies will sing, "though that's not to say there may not be some guttural moments".
Together, they provide a double bill of which Byrne says, " in terms of outright entertainment value for the general public, that's my pick''.
Not that there isn't plenty else on offer. While many people see impro in sketch comedy terms, influenced by such TV shows as Thank God You're Here, Byrne points out it can be used as a dramatic framework, too.
"My own piece. Drivers [on July 19] begins with our monologues we might have with ourselves whilew we are driving. It plays with that, it deals with basic human drives ... and what's driving us underneath.''
In creating the piece, which uses offstage performers to provide the monologues for the onstage performers, Byrne was inspired in part by social researcher Hugh Mackay and his book What Makes Us Tick? The Ten Desires That Drive Us.
On the same night is Taking Off the Bird Suit, in which New Zealander Christine Brooks and an all-female cast play characters "to quote a poem she was inspired by, 'beyond the picturesque and mythical'. She was inspired by Sirens by Margaret Atwood, which deals wth one of the Sirens from The Odyssey, who was sick of being nothing more than picturesque and mythical.''
That show is paired with If These Walls Could Talk, about what might happen if your rooms could describe what they've seen over generations.
Sunday Brunch, on July 18, is directed by Canberran Christopher Thomas and deals with a family gathering - it could be a reunion, a birthday, a Christmas barbecue - in a theatrical form known as la ronde.
"A and B play a scene, then A leaves and B plays a scene with C and then B leaves and C plays a scene with D and so on until it comes back around."
It's paired with Framed Up, Melbourne director Mark Gambino's show in which characterisations are inspired by projected photographs.
And there's still more to discover. The uninitiated can even try out improvisation for themselves in a public workshop, run by Mark Gambino on the morning of Saturday, July 19, called "Impro Discovery". To book the workshop, see impro.com.au/workshops.
Improvention: the International Festival of Unscripted Theatre & Comedy is on at The Street Theatre from July 16 to 20. More information and bookings: thestreet.org.au
