Best Improv Classes NYC: Find Courses & Onsite Training

Learn More About NYC Improv Courses

What is Improv?

Improv, or improvisational theater, is a performance art in which the performers spontaneously create and act out a scene without prior planning or scripting. Performers cooperate with one another — and often, their audience — to invent original characters, dialogue, and stories while they perform. Actors often use improv as a form of live theater, usually comedy, but actors and scriptwriters also practice improv for training, and other professionals study improv to improve their creative and communication skills. Improv includes a range of styles; some are similar to social games like charades, while some are serious dramatic arts that create original ideas and works.

Forms of improvisational theater have existed throughout history, including farces performed in Ancient Rome and the commedia dell’arte performances of Renaissance Italy. Modern improv, however, was formalized beginning in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, when it was primarily discussed as an acting exercise. The work of acting teacher Viola Spolin, particularly her book “Improvisation for the Theater” (1963), is credited with further developing the techniques and spreading the ideas of improv. Since the late 1950s, amateur and professional improv groups, called troupes, have multiplied both for training purposes and to entertain audiences. New York City boasts the greatest number of improv troupes of any city in the world, including the prestigious Upright Citizens Brigade, a theater and training center founded in 1999 by alumni of Saturday Night Live.

Why Learn Improv?

First and most important, improv is fun! Improv is an entertaining and exciting social activity, a shared experience that, by its nature, creates something new and unexpected every time. Comedic improv creates laughter whether an exercise goes well or poorly. Dramatic improv may inspire interesting new stories and ideas for later exploration. There are other practical benefits to improv’s social nature. Practicing the give-and-take of an improv performance teaches valuable social skills and creates bonds between students. By building talent and confidence, improv lessons also help to overcome social fears, especially when those lessons lead to public performances.

Many types of work benefit from improvisation training, and some employers promote improv classes as a way to build useful skills. Education, sales, and other professions centered around communication can benefit from improv training to practice their public speaking, their active listening, and their ability to smoothly adjust to audience reactions and changing conditions. Advertisers, marketers, and executives can improve their creativity and problem-solving techniques through improv practice. Anyone working as part of a team can build their collaborative skills through improv exercises, especially if the whole work team participates together. This same skill training — attention, communication, creativity, problem-solving, and cooperation — can benefit anyone studying improv for personal improvement.

Finally, improv is a necessary skill for acting, not only for creating original performances but also for understanding how narratives are invented and improved, how to portray a wide range of characters, and how to manage uncertainty and problems while performing. Both professional and amateur actors should practice improv of several varieties to build these abilities. Others with related careers or hobbies — comedians, writers, directors, and other theater workers like set and costume designers — can benefit from improv to better understand acting’s challenges and to improve their creative work.

What Will You Learn in an Improv Class?

Improv incorporates a broad range of skills, especially when considering all its different varieties: comedy versus drama, short-form versus long-form, and specialized types like musical or stand-up improv. Introductory classes usually begin by presenting the philosophy, traditions, vocabulary, and ground rules of improv, then addressing the basic, common skills across all its forms. First, in any improv class, you will constantly practice giving yourself and others permission to create and contribute. Many people are not used to having their contributions heard or valued, so this experience alone is a valuable life skill. Instructors will lead you through exercises that improve your clarity and fluency of speech and thought, particularly when you are filling pauses between ideas so that you always have something to say. Similarly, you will learn how to anticipate, accept, and react to unexpected events, sometimes called “the art of saying ‘Yes, and…’.” Part of this acceptance is another critical practice in improv: listening closely to your collaborators, remembering what they have contributed, and building on those ideas. In return, you will learn to trust your collaborators to accept and incorporate your contributions without judgment.

Another skill set trained throughout improv instruction is creative thought and imagination. While many assume that imagination is an inborn trait, this ability can be strengthened through mental tools and exercises. Before you ever attempt your first improv scene, instructors will explain several creative techniques and lead you through practice exercises to help them become habits. As you master early lessons, instructors will progress to more advanced methods that enable you to imagine scenes, characters, and situations further outside of your experience. Another set of exercises that starts simple and grows more complex is the toolkit of audience interaction, the ‘arts of charisma’: adjusting your voice, body language, and word choices to draw attention, create your intended reaction, and react to events. You will also learn to observe your audience, gauging their interest, expectations, and approval to better adjust your performance.

Intermediate improv lessons address the more specific skills of different improv forms and may lead to short public performances. These lessons typically include key elements of theater, such as setting a scene through context cues and staging, creating a character with elements of speech and movement, and putting yourself into a character’s mind. Exercises here could include monologues or conversations where you are given random traits or ‘quirks’ and asked to incorporate these into a character. You may also practice pantomime, creating props and settings through movement alone and remembering these creations — yours and your collaborators’ — for consistency. These preparations will help you start each improv performance faster and build a shared structure that eases its demands. All styles of improv, but especially long scenes, benefit from lessons on narrative structure, which will help you construct a coherent, believable storyline with an engaging start, interesting events, and a clear and satisfactory conclusion. Comedic improv also requires an understanding of the habits of good comedy, including knowing and subverting audience expectations, selling a joke without needing to repeat or highlight it, exaggeration versus understatement, and ‘timing,’ choosing the right moments to speak or stay silent.

Advanced improv training will prepare you for independent public performance, with all its additional challenges. Many advanced classes include these public performances to test and practice your skills. You will be encouraged to strengthen your weaker abilities through targeted practice and by accepting and incorporating feedback. Additional exercises will further enhance your memory and narrative awareness so that you can retain more details from scene to scene and construct longer stories. You may be introduced to improv with more difficult themes, such as sensitive topics or bizarre situations, to practice embracing variety and avoiding pitfalls. Instructors will also share techniques for dealing with negativity, such as when other performers reject your contributions or when audiences become unhappy or hostile. Finally, once you have mastered your core skills, you can create a personal improv style based on your strengths and preferences.

How Long Will It Take to Learn Improv?

Just as there are different types and levels of improv performance, there are degrees of expertise and fluency among improv students. You can learn the basic concepts of improv in a single class session, along with a handful of exercises that will, with work, improve your creativity, spontaneity, and confidence. However, any skill requires practice and improv particularly needs to be done to be understood. By improv’s essential nature, every performance is different, introducing new elements and challenges. To build your skills and comfort, you may want to take multiple class sessions spread out over a longer period, at least several months. Taking your time allows you to play with new troupes, try new scenarios, and explore different approaches. Additional classes will also increase your repertoire of techniques, exercises, and games to boost your improv abilities. During this time, you can also advance to more intensive and focused courses that will teach you professional acting concepts and techniques, raising your improv from casual play to skilled competence. According to improv instructor Jimmy Carrane, it may take three or more years of regular study to achieve a consistent performance and decide whether you want to pursue a career in improv.

What are the Advantages of Taking an Improv Class?

Improv instructors have many years of active practice performing their art, whether they are currently part of a public troupe, have a professional acting career, or studied specifically to become an acting instructor, if not all three. Through this experience, they have gathered a repertoire of useful teaching exercises. They have also gained insights into which exercises work best, what skills benefit their work, what approaches work well on stage, and all the challenges improv performers encounter and how they can be overcome. Live improv classes allow instructors to share their wisdom, providing students with tested tools and valuable guidance. This guidance accelerates the learning process by focusing on the most valuable lessons, communicating these lessons more quickly, and avoiding errors and delays that can ingrain bad habits. A skilled instructor will be able to observe students’ efforts, diagnose their strengths and weaknesses, and provide tailored advice to help them past their difficulties.

You might be able to learn the basic concepts of improv from a book or website, especially one with lessons written by a veteran performer, but any static text will lack personal feedback. Practicing exercises on your own can help, but an instructor can make sure you are using those tools correctly. An instructor acts as an ideal partner when testing improv skills, providing targeted prompts to broaden your practice and giving the encouragement, trust, and rapport that are so crucial to good improv. An instructor will be able to confirm when you have demonstrated sufficient ability with underlying skills and are ready to progress to more advanced study. Equally as valuable, an instructor knows which skills are fundamental and which are advanced, helping you avoid frustrations and mistakes when tackling a more challenging aspect of improv.

Most importantly, a live class provides the variety and social connections that are central to improv. You will need other people to generate unexpected ideas and challenge you to accept and incorporate those contributions. Other students will also incorporate your ideas, encouraging your inclusion and guiding you toward better contributions. Working with any improv troupe, even a group of students brought together for a single class, is an exercise in mutual trust and support. Playing with other performers also allows you to practice active listening and attention, even while generating ideas. Again, you might be able to gather a group of fellow students for this purpose, but without an instructor directing, observing, and diagnosing your practices, unsupervised meetings can stall or result in hurt feelings. An improv instructor ensures that performances and lessons keep moving forward, with less wasted time and better results from each practice. Finally, a classroom setting ensures that all students are dedicated to the same purpose, are motivated to learn and support each other’s learning, and are at approximately the same level, with no assumptions of superiority.

Best Improv Classes in NYC

New York City, with a wealth of improv theaters and acting schools, offers students an equally broad choice of improv classes, from short drop-in visits and practice ‘jams’ to multi-day intensives. These courses are taught by practicing improv actors, professional instructors, or even well-known actors and comedians. The best classes will meet a student’s ideal intersection between length, quality, and cost.

New York Improv Theater, the home of the troupe Eight is NEVER Enough, holds several introductory improv classes designed for different types of students, including children as young as four years old, teenagers, and adults of varying interests. Laughter Starts Here: Intro to Improv Comedy is a multiple-session course for adults interested in comedic improv. Through simple games, instructors guide students through the core improv skills of collaboration, performance, and storytelling. This course’s focus is on entertainment, making it an enjoyable experience even for casual participants, but it also provides enough practice to prepare students for further study. A shorter course, Improv Comedy for Business Professionals, teaches the principles of improv to help professionals improve their confidence, creativity, and public speaking. These classes also center on teaching games but have a more explicit focus on underlying skills like active listening, accepting and working with offers, and connecting to an audience. The instructor also addresses how these skills may be applied to a variety of career tasks like team building, employee management, and sales.

Improvolution, an improv training school founded by Groundlings alumnus Holly Mandel, bills itself as “NYC’s only character-based improv school” and explicitly encourages improv as an enjoyable, valuable pastime for everyone. Novices should begin with Intro to Improv, a single-session class that teaches the fundamental ideas and techniques of improv, including games and exercises to get participants started exploring the subject. For more in-depth instruction to build improv fundamentals, students should take Level 1: Core Improv. This multi-session course begins with games, exercises, and drills, progressing into short scenes that build and expand students’ skills. Individual attention and support help each student progress at their own pace while also participating in group activities. Completing this program prepares students for Improvolution’s intermediate Level 2 and Level 3 courses, which can be followed by Advanced Improv workshops to learn and improve specific techniques.

A theater company dedicated to supporting artists’ journey from interest to expertise, the Brooklyn Comedy Collective offers both intensive training courses and short topical workshops. Beginning students can quickly learn the basics of improv and progress to confident performance through their Summer Improv Intensive: Levels 1 & 2, an accelerated class over several summer sessions. Instructors focus on building confidence, fighting mental blocks and anxiety, inspiring creativity, and preparing students for a public performance at the course’s conclusion. More experienced students can instead opt for Summer Improv Intensive: Levels 2 & 3, which assumes some prior instruction and practice with improv and progresses to more advanced and complex techniques. While the same length as the introductory course and overlapping some of its exercises and explanations, the advanced course adds discussion and practice with major elements of professional acting: character creation, scene dynamics, audience interaction, and personal style.

Students of Carl Kissin’s Kissin Improv school benefit directly from the experience of a master improvisation artist. The school’s evening class, Tuesday Improv - Night Time Special (Class + Coaching), includes 50 minutes of private instruction on improv fundamentals with Carl himself, plus a group class to practice and enhance these skills. More experienced students can benefit from one or more sessions of Sunday Afternoon - Performance Improv, a group class, and practice guided by experienced improv artists. This Sunday offering is sometimes scheduled as a single-day drop-in class, while at other times of the year, it becomes a multiple-session course of several Sundays followed by an onstage public show.

The Upright Citizens Brigade is probably New York’s best-known improv theater and troupe. They also conduct an improv training school with two New York locations as well as classrooms in Los Angeles and live online courses. New students should begin with their Improv 101, a multi-session course that concludes with a public class show. Improv 101 teaches the fundamental concepts of improvisation through lessons, games, exercises, and scene work. The course particularly focuses on how to build characters, scenes, and a shared reality between participants, tools that will support further learning. Graduates of this course can then progress through Improv 201, Improv 301, Improv 401, and Advanced Improv, intermediate to advanced courses that add layers of expertise and practice and progress students toward a career in professional improv.

The Peoples Improv Theater is a well-known New York comedy theater that also incorporates an improv training center. Its alumni include multiple successful comedians, scriptwriters, and actors. The PIT offers a range of classes for every interest, from single-evening “drop-in” sessions for training and practice to intensive courses from beginner to advanced levels to specialized classes for sketch comedy, stand-up, musical improv, and acting. One of their unique offerings, Improv for Womxn, is a multiple-session beginner course specifically for female students, allowing participants to learn the basics of improv in a more comfortable, supportive environment. Dedicated students looking for a complete, accelerated course in improv might consider their Summer Intensive, which combines eleven courses over two months, including improv fundamentals, acting, character creation, sketch comedy, clowning, romantic comedy, drama, and stand-up. Participants can sign up for as few as two or three days of the series, one week, four weeks, or the full six-week program, with discounts for larger packages if registered early.

Live Online Improv Classes

Sometimes, scheduling and travel make it difficult to reach a classroom in downtown New York. Live online classes offer a more convenient alternative, accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection. Online classes are also often less expensive, which can be a concern for students just exploring improv and unsure if they want to invest further.

Founded by an alumnus of the legendary Second City troupe, Actor’s Improv Studio specializes in teaching improv skills to aspiring actors. Their live online course, Online Improv, is a single-session class accessible to performers at any skill level. Inexpensive and convenient, this class can also be a helpful introduction to anyone wanting to learn more about improv itself, including many exercises useful outside of acting.

Fun With Improv! Improv Now. hosts a short, low-cost Online Class that introduces improv as an entertaining pastime for a broad audience. This class introduces the basic concepts and exercises of improv both as tools to improve skills like public speaking and spontaneity and also as a fun social activity.

Zen-prov! approaches improv in another unique direction as a tool for self-improvement. In their online Improv Classes, students participate in exercises, discussions, and other interactive activities to build connections with others and discover their untapped abilities. Students will learn to trust their instincts, hear and manage their thoughts, and listen to and understand other people’s words. The course includes multiple live online sessions, with assigned exercises between classes to further build skills.

Described as a “learning community” centered around improv comedy, The Radical Agreement Project has begun to expand its course offerings into virtual space. Its primary live online course, Beginners Improv - Intro To Improv, is a multi-session course that teaches the fundamental skills of improv comedy through exercises and practice scenes. In addition to building comedic ability, students will improve their general creativity, listening, and cooperation skills. A unique course also offered online; Brevity is the Soul of Wit, sharpens students’ improv talents through an emphasis on brevity, the art of “saying more with less” through a few precisely chosen words and actions. This multi-session course includes novel exercises and practices focused on its subject. Both courses also include shared viewings of sample scenes that illustrate important topics and techniques and a reading list of recommended books.

New York Improv Theater, in addition to its in-person classes in New York City, also hosts an Online Comedy Class: Introduction, a beginning course in comedic writing, stand-up, and improvisation. The course is taught through a combination of pre-recorded videos, journaling and writing assignments, shared live performance sessions, including open-mic comedy and improv games and exercises, and online private coaching to review each student’s performances and progress. Students can review, study, and prepare for each class separately before booking their performance and review sessions, allowing time to digest ideas and feedback and decide if and when they are ready to continue.

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Kissin Improv Tuesday Improv - Night Time Special (Class + Coaching)

Kissin Improv Sunday Afternoon - Performance Improv

Improvolution Intro to Improv

Fun w Improv. Improv Now. ONLINE Fun with Improv class

Learn Improv

Improvolution Launch Into 'Yes!' Improv

Improvolution Level 1: Core Improv

Kissin Improv Tuesday Improv - Daytime Special (Class + Coaching)

Key Insights

Learn More About NYC Improv Courses

What is Improv?

Why Learn Improv?

What Will You Learn in an Improv Class?

How Long Will It Take to Learn Improv?

What are the Advantages of Taking an Improv Class?

Best Improv Classes in NYC

Live Online Improv Classes

NYC Improv Courses by School

Kissin Improv

Tuesday Improv - Night Time Special (Class + Coaching)

Sunday Afternoon - Performance Improv

Tuesday Improv - Daytime Special (Class + Coaching)

Improvolution

Intro to Improv

Launch Into 'Yes!' Improv

Level 1: Core Improv

Fun w Improv. Improv Now.

ONLINE Fun with Improv class

NYC Improv Corporate & Onsite Training Noble Desktop

Improv Training Locations in or Near NYC

NYC Improv
Corporate & Onsite Training