Improvaganza 2016 was the 16th annual Improvaganza in Edmonton. It was the first Improvaganza curated by Artistic Director Matt Schuurman.
This was the fourth year that the festival took place at the Citadel Theatre, in both the Rice (aka The Club) & Zeidler Theatres, as well as a performance at the Myer Horowitz Theatre. It featured the Canadian premiere of Mark Kendall’s The Magic Negro and Other Blackness, which would return to Edmonton at the Fringe Festival and tour the US shortly after.
Fun fact: during this festival, Great Britain voted to leave the EU. At Improvised Dungeons & Dragons, Travis played a character named Brexit the Barbarian – which perhaps was a little too real for our guests from the UK.
Festival acts in 2016 included:
- All Jane (all-women jam show)
- Austin/Austin (Ryan Austin & Quinn Buckner) | Austin
- Biggie & Smalls | Regina
- The Comic Strippers | Vancouver
- Dad’s Garage (Mark Kendall & Travis Sharp) | Atlanta
- The Debutantes | Edmonton
- Doodle Bop Girls (Sarah Mattiello & Josephine Hendrick) | Edmonton
- The Future | Philadelphia
- H.U.N.K.S. (Tim Gray, Quinn Greene, Sam McLean, Matt Nightingale, Dana Smith, Rory Fallis) | Winnipeg
- Improvised Dungeons & Dragons (Mark Meer & co) | Edmonton
- Joyride (Stacey Hallal & Chase Padgett) | Portland
- The Late Late Breakfast Show | Calgary
- Like Father, Like Son (Julian Faid & Jessie McPhee) | Edmonton
- Little Mountain Improv | Vancouver
- The Magic Negro and Other Blackness (Mark Kendall) | Atlanta
- Marv N’ Berry (Chris Borger, Mike Robertson, Sam Stralak, Nikki Hulowski, Quinn Contini) | Edmonton
- Matterhorn (Brian Cook, Cam MacLeod, Andrew Barber, Scott Patey) | Vancouver
- Maestro
- Me & My Ex (Sven Lanser & Laura Doorneweerd) | Amsterdam
- Murder, She Improvised | Atlanta
- North Coast (Kaila Mullady, Douglas Widick, Jonathan Demuth) | New York
- Off Book: The Improvised Musical | Edmonton
- Rhapsodes (Adam Meggido & Sean McCann) | London
- Spin the Bottle
- The Sunday Service (Ryan Beil, Caitlin Howden, Aaron Read) | Vancouver
- Virgina Jack (Briana Rayner & Nicole Passmore) | Vancouver
- Weird Al Karaoke
- International Festival Ensemble, featuring Matt Alden, Leon Anderson, Bill Binder, Will Hamilton, Inbal Lori, Sarah Mattiello, Nicole Passmore & Molly Scullion