Master Classes

ImprovBoston regularly hosts nationally acclaimed improv instructors, directors, performers, authors, playwrights, and actors as part of our Master Class Series. Our goal is to provide ongoing opportunities for our students, cast, and wider community to experience a variety of talent and perspectives.

Upcoming Master Classes:

Jeffrey Sweet's HARD-CORE WRITING TECHNIQUE

The secrets of painless exposition.  Bringing a scene alive through violation of ritual and convention.  Finding where the story is and the structure it wants to be in.  Roles in conflict -- how to set up a civil war inside a character.  This is not a wispy, inspirational session.  It is designed to put tools into your hands you can use immediately.  Techniques that work for sketches, plays and screenplays. 

REGISTER ONLINE

$60 per person; MAXIMUM 16 participants

Day/Time: Saturday 2PM - 5PM

Class Dates: April 6, 2013

Class Location: ImprovBoston Mainstage

Prerequisites: none

Click here to REGISTER

Instructor: Jeffrey Sweet has used the techniques he teaches to write scripts (as either credited writer or creative consultant) for award-winning TV movies (including the Peabody Award-winning PACK OF LIES and Emmy-winning A WOMAN NAMED JACKIE), episodes for comedy and drama, daytime and pilots, in the process winning a Writers Guild of America Award and an Emmy nomination.  His plays and musicals have been produced in New York, Chicago, London, Tokyo and on other regional and international stages, picking up two American Theatre Critics Association Awards, the Jefferson Award, the American Express-Kennedy Center production grant, the Audelco Award, a "Best Plays" citation, and "critic's choice" designations from the NY TIMES, CHIAGO TRIBUNE and LA TIMES.  Actors who have appeared in his scripts include Helen Hunt, Jon Cryer, Nathan Lane, Jack Klugman, Dan Lauria, Amy Morton, Alan Bates, Candace Bergen, William Petersen, Gary Cole, Richard Kind, Ellen Burstyn, Garry Marshall, Megan Mullally and Judy Kaye.  He has taught writing for the Actors Studio, Second City, Columbia University, New Dramatists, the O'Neill Center, the University of Iowa and Rutgers.  His book, THE DRAMATIST'S TOOLKIT, is in wide use as a text, is in its 16th printing and has been endorsed by Pulitzer Prize-winners Donald Margulies and Sheldon Harnick.  He is also the author of SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY, the oral history of Second City.

Previous Master Classes have been taught by Amy Poehler (Saturday Night Live, Parks and Recreation), Joe Bill (Annoyance Theater, BassProv), Mark Sutton (Annoyance Theater, BassProv), Christina Gausas (Late Night with Conan O'Brien), Jeff Griggs (author, Guru: My Days With Del Close), Keith Johnstone (author of Impro, creator of TheatreSports), Mick Napier (Second City), Adam Felber (Real Time with Bill Maher), Jonathan Katz (Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist), Dave Razowsky (Second City), Jill Bernard (ComedySportz Minneapolis, HUGE), Zach Ward (DSI Comedy Theater), Bill Arnett (ImprovOlympic, Chicago), Bob Dassie (ImprovOlympic, Los Angeles).