IMPROCUP 2024
Festival of theater improvisation
The International Festival of Improvisation, the TiB Improcup, returns to Graz in November 2024!
Secure your tickets now!
The improvisers of the TiB invite the best improv artists from Europe to blind dates and develop 5 unique “DUO-SHOWS” with them.
If you pay for 4 shows, you go to the 5th show for FREE!
and:
PLEASE NOTE THE DIFFERENT LOCATIONS!
PROGRAM:
Day 1: Sunday, 17.11.: LAUT AM SONNTAG (English+German)
We welcome our international guests to Graz! Through Speed Dating Questions we learn about their lives. Their personal opinions and stories will inspire improvised scenes and songs. Celebrate the unexpected!
Day 2: Monday, 18.11.: MONDAY SPECIAL-EUROMIX (English+German)
Two acts for your MONTAG: First, a Marathon of interwoven scenes, inspired by the audience. Second, we give power to the actors, as each Impro Player directs a theatrical form of their choosing. A variety pack, with surprising flavors!
Day 3: Tuesday, 19.11.: GSCHISSN GSCHMISSN & BLIND SPOT: 2 Duo-Shows !!! (german)
GSCHISSN GSCHMISSN:BLÖD GELAUFEN - Juliette Eröd (TiB) & Anja Balzer (DE)
A woman from Graz and a woman from Hern in the Ruhr area confront the constant cycle of redefining matter, of decay and new beginnings. What is trash for one is treasure for the other. While one turns her back on the throwaway society, the other constantly asks herself: is this art or can it go? Who is who? For their blind date, they give each other found objects from streets with the same names in their cities. Do the Schiller streets have more in common than initially assumed? Where are the boundaries blurred? And what is immaterial waste?
BLIND SPOT - Pia Hierzegger (TiB) & Oliver Rank (DE)
We go in search of blind spots in our own biographies. A song, a poem, a headline triggers a different reaction in each person, bringing up forgotten moments from their lives. This triggers our blind date and elicits personal associations, which we then turn into fictional stories together in front of and for the audience.
Day 4: Wednesday, 20.11.: 194 KM BETWEEN US & CAT LADIES & THE FUTURE FOUNDATION: 3 duo shows!!! (german+english)
194 KM BETWEEN US - Lorenz Kabas (TiB) & Sara Šoukal (SI)
"194 Kilometers Between Us" is a captivating improvisational theater show featuring two dynamic performers—a Slovenian and an Austrian. Through vibrant physical expression and the rich nuances of their native languages, they explore the distance and connection between their cultures. With each scene, they break down barriers and celebrate the beauty of spontaneity, creating a unique tapestry of movement and emotion that bridges their 194 kilometers.
CAT LADIES: LONELY TOGETHER - Beatrix Brunschko (TiB) & Billy Kissa (GR+BE)
A long time ago, they crossed paths but never truly connected. "She's really cool, what could I possibly say that would catch her attention?" one thought. The other wondered, "Why doesn’t she talk to me? Maybe she just doesn’t like me." Years later, fate finally brought them together again—this time on stage. Here, they will reveal themselves through questions and answers, confessions and improvised scenes.
Will they find friendship, or will they remain distant, wondering what could have been?
FUTURE FOUNDATION: HANDMADE SCIFI - Jacob Banigan (TiB) & Chris Mead (UK)
The Science Fiction short story is a very efficient way to expand your mind. Writers like Asimov, Bradbury, Le Guin, and Vonnegut could take a concept from the current world and tease that idea out, creating a possible society in a possible future. There they would tell you a story, one to make you wonder at the infinite and reflect on the present, to blow your mind in just 20 pages. As fans of the Golden Age of Sci Fi, Chris Mead and Jacob Banigan form the FUTURE FOUNDATION. Together they will take a cutting edge concept of today and extrapolate a future which is both familiar and bizarre ... but possible!
DAY 5: Thursday, 21.11.: ALL AGAINST ONE: The Grand Final (German+English)
In the Festival Finale the players compete, not against each other, but all versus the Host of the show! Can the players meet each Challenge? Will they be united in their battle, or will they fall apart? Is the MC even playing fair?
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The central idea of IMPROCUP 2024 is blind dates with our guests. Each guest will meet a TiB actor/actress in the run-up to the festival. They do not know each other and have never worked together before. These encounters are the starting point for 5 different “Dynamic Duo Shows”, which will be the heart of the Improcup. 5 evenings of theater that will be generated from these meetings and the laboratory of improvisational theater. The duos will explore the new territory they will enter together. They will examine their similarities and differences, they will develop their theatrical theories and the audience can watch them in real time as they put their hypotheses to the test in the field of tension “improv artists in Europe”. Their biographies, personalities, attitudes and improv styles are the variables that will clash in the improvised theater experiments.
We are eagerly awaiting the results of these encounters.Music.
Silence. Politics. The personal. Universal. Literature. Genre. Speeches. Theater. Improvisation. We don't know which shows we will experience. What we do know is that they will entertain, touch and move us.
The duos are:
Gschissn Gschmissn - Juliette Eröd (TiB) / Anja Balzer (Germany)
Blind Spot - Pia Hierzegger (TiB) / Oliver Rank (Germany)
Cat Ladies - Beatrix Brunschko (TiB) / Billy Kissa (Greece)
194Km Between Us - Lorenz Kabas (TiB) / Sara Šoukal (Slovenia)
Future Foundation - Jacob Banigan (TiB) / Chris Mead (UK)
(parts are translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator)
