Dive into the heart of improv with the 2025 XL Happy Valley Improv Festival. This year, we're thrilled to offer a lineup of uniquely crafted workshops, each designed to enhance your improvisational skills, whether you're just stepping into the spotlight or already basking in its glow. With a cap of 16 participants per session, we ensure an intimate learning experience for $50 per workshop.
Our commitment extends beyond the stage; all proceeds directly support our esteemed workshop teachers, covering their honoraria and supporting the ongoing costs of producing the festival.
This opportunity to learn from these great improvisers from around the country has been made possible through the generous support of a Tourism Grant from the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau and the County Commissioners, highlighting Happy Valley's vibrant cultural scene. Discover more about what makes Happy Valley a hub for adventure and creativity at www.happyvalley.com.
Mark your calendars: tickets are available March 1st for performers and March 15th for the general public. Don't miss your chance to be part of this extraordinary improv journey!
Our commitment extends beyond the stage; all proceeds directly support our esteemed workshop teachers, covering their honoraria and supporting the ongoing costs of producing the festival.
This opportunity to learn from these great improvisers from around the country has been made possible through the generous support of a Tourism Grant from the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau and the County Commissioners, highlighting Happy Valley's vibrant cultural scene. Discover more about what makes Happy Valley a hub for adventure and creativity at www.happyvalley.com.
Mark your calendars: tickets are available March 1st for performers and March 15th for the general public. Don't miss your chance to be part of this extraordinary improv journey!
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Tanya Morgan
Workshop Title: You Are Enough Workshop Time: Thursday, May 15th | 3:00pm - 5:30pm This workshop is all about 2 person scenes because, in improv, you and your scene partner are all you have—and that’s enough! You Are Enough teaches you that focusing on making each other look good allows you both to discover—rather than invent—what’s naturally funny in your scene. This workshop will help you improve your confidence and enhance connection and collaboration with others. |
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Tanya Morgan is a Philadelphia based actor, writer, director, and improv performer, acting/improv coach, and trauma informed teaching artist with over 20 years of experience. She owns and operates Sawubona Creativity Project, a community theatre offering improv jams, mindfulness workshops, and theatre arts classes for kids, teens and adults. As a teaching artist, Tanya blends her performance skills with her mental health experience to promote mental well-being through the arts. Tanya also develops and facilitates team building workshops for corporations. Tanya performs regularly with several improv teams throughout the East Coast and sponsors organizations; like Girls, Inc. to provide free theatre workshops to young girls and teens.
Early next year, you can see Tanya starring as Andrea in Kenneth Jones' Hollywood, Nebraska at the South Camden Theatre Company.
Learn more at Sawubona Creativity Project
Facebook: Sawubona Creativity | Tanya Morgan
Instagram: @ts_morgan | @sawubonacreativity
Early next year, you can see Tanya starring as Andrea in Kenneth Jones' Hollywood, Nebraska at the South Camden Theatre Company.
Learn more at Sawubona Creativity Project
Facebook: Sawubona Creativity | Tanya Morgan
Instagram: @ts_morgan | @sawubonacreativity
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Estevan J. (Chuy) Zárate Workshop Title: Forget What You Know Workshop Time: Friday, May 16th | 11:00am - 1:30pm Feel like your scenework is stagnating? Do you find yourself resting on what you know works in front of an audience for self-gratification? Do you get too far into your head when you are trying to build a simple scene? Too many times improvisers feel the need to be clever or witty on stage. Do you get stuck in a whirlwind of bits that really serve no purpose in a scene? It might be time to forget what you know and remember that there are simple building blocks to scene work. There is no better way to get out of your head and back into the scene than remembering the basics. We will wipe the slate clean. |
To be successful at the long scene, you need to be proficient in the short scene. By the end of this workshop, you should have a strong instinct for creating quick relationships and lasting scene premises. You will look at scene starts as the most important aspect of every scene. Your relationship establishing "muscle memory" will hopefully take over and guide you to satisfying and creative scenes. Imps with 2 plus years of experience will be more comfortable in this class
Estevan J. (Chuy) Zarate is an actor/director/coach from San Antonio TX that has been improvising for audiences for 35 years. He has lived most of his life in Improv Mecca Austin TX. Chuy was one of the driving forces of improv in the early 2000s in Austin. He helped make it the viable improv comedy scene that it is today. Current and previous improv troupes include The Hideout Theatre's house troupe: The Big Bash, Luby's Bingo Hall, Merlinworks faculty troupe: The Known Wizards, An Evening With...With Tyler and Chuy feat. Tosin, duos: Pizarati w/ Ellen Pizarek, ChuTopp w/ Topping Haggerty, RD: We Go For It! w/Rachel Austin, Dorsey/Zárate w/ Neil Dorsey and The Project with his 21 year old son Antonio. Past mainstay Austin and San Antonio troupes include: The Oxymorons, Your Dad's Friends, Ray Prewitt's 4th Grade Class, ¡Zarzamora! and Monk's Night Out. He also directed and performed with sketch troupes The Latino Comedy Project and The Mexcentrics. He has a very eclectic tool belt to reach into that allows him to teach all styles and formats. If there is a scenario to be performed in, he has probably performed it. With specialties in improv singing, grounded/character-driven scenework and team building, Chuy has coached hundreds of kids, teens, students and adults for years to multiple successes.
Estevan J. (Chuy) Zarate is an actor/director/coach from San Antonio TX that has been improvising for audiences for 35 years. He has lived most of his life in Improv Mecca Austin TX. Chuy was one of the driving forces of improv in the early 2000s in Austin. He helped make it the viable improv comedy scene that it is today. Current and previous improv troupes include The Hideout Theatre's house troupe: The Big Bash, Luby's Bingo Hall, Merlinworks faculty troupe: The Known Wizards, An Evening With...With Tyler and Chuy feat. Tosin, duos: Pizarati w/ Ellen Pizarek, ChuTopp w/ Topping Haggerty, RD: We Go For It! w/Rachel Austin, Dorsey/Zárate w/ Neil Dorsey and The Project with his 21 year old son Antonio. Past mainstay Austin and San Antonio troupes include: The Oxymorons, Your Dad's Friends, Ray Prewitt's 4th Grade Class, ¡Zarzamora! and Monk's Night Out. He also directed and performed with sketch troupes The Latino Comedy Project and The Mexcentrics. He has a very eclectic tool belt to reach into that allows him to teach all styles and formats. If there is a scenario to be performed in, he has probably performed it. With specialties in improv singing, grounded/character-driven scenework and team building, Chuy has coached hundreds of kids, teens, students and adults for years to multiple successes.
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Radhika Rao
Workshop Title: Holi Hai!! Bring a Bollywood Technicolor Lens to your Improv Game! Workshop Time: Friday, May 16th | 2:30pm - 5pm Bollywood Cinema masters the art of high-stakes storytelling. Did you know that until recently, huge percentages of Bollywood script were largely improvised on the set? Learn from their playbook: Elevate the stakes: Every scene demands maximum drama. Bold character choices: Push your characters to the extreme. Embrace the theatrical: Unapologetically inject music, dance, and over-the-top emotions into your scene. Embrace confidence: Perform with over the top- boldness and conviction. This approach will add a vibrant, unexpected energy to your improv practice. Use authentic storylines from cultures or family narratives you were raised in. |
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Radhika brings over 10 years of teaching improv, and embracing different cultural perspectives to performing Improv.
Please note- This workshop will involve movement, music, and a call to heightened emotions- no dance/music/over-emotionality experience required!
Radhika Rao is a bilingual actor, improv artist, and theater arts/improv/communications coach based in San Francisco, California. Radhika is equally at home in the hyper scripted world of Shakespeare as she is the unscripted world of improv or contemporary theater.She is a cast member in the Improv Duo “Gamesome Frolic” and Bollywood Inspired Troupe- "Kuch Kuch Bollywood" She was also featured in the web series "Hiraeth" and "Strings Attached” available on Prime Video. She performs her solo show “Not Therapy” regularly- a show that brings audience and performers together in healing outside therapy rooms, through stories, games and laughter.
Please note- This workshop will involve movement, music, and a call to heightened emotions- no dance/music/over-emotionality experience required!
Radhika Rao is a bilingual actor, improv artist, and theater arts/improv/communications coach based in San Francisco, California. Radhika is equally at home in the hyper scripted world of Shakespeare as she is the unscripted world of improv or contemporary theater.She is a cast member in the Improv Duo “Gamesome Frolic” and Bollywood Inspired Troupe- "Kuch Kuch Bollywood" She was also featured in the web series "Hiraeth" and "Strings Attached” available on Prime Video. She performs her solo show “Not Therapy” regularly- a show that brings audience and performers together in healing outside therapy rooms, through stories, games and laughter.
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Greg Tavares
Workshop Title: The Join Workshop Time: Saturday, May 17th | 11:00am - 1:30pm This is a workshop about the top of the scene – that first moment when you feel either that great connection with your scene partner or that sinking feeling that you are alone in the universe. Don’t you want more of that great feeling and less of that sinking feeling? I call that great feeling at the top of a scene when you know you are together and everything is going to work out – The Join. It is about supporting, not understanding. It is about belonging to each other, even when you don’t know how. It is about moving before you talk. Every scene starts with a join, so you might as well learn The Join. |
Greg Tavares has spent his life doing improv and even wrote a book called Improv for Everyone designed to help anyone who wanted to learn how to improvise. He has performed 1000’s of improv shows and taught hundreds of workshops. He is the Co-artistic director of Theatre 99 in Charleston, SC and the co-founder of The Charleston Comedy Festival. He has also written a couple books. In the audiobook I Am the Horrible Thing he tells the story of his brush with death on a Costa Rican beach. His book, Daddy Issues: How to Stop worrying and love being a Dad, was written from personal experience and takes a funny and blunt look at becoming a father when you never wanted kids. He has been doing Duolingo French for 3 years, but still can’t order a beer using the language.
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Jaime Moyer
Workshop Title: Ditch the Pitch - How to Avoid Planning & Plot Workshop Time: Saturday, May 17th | 2:30pm - 5:00pm This unique workshop will break down the art of improvisation to its simplest form: uncomplicated agreement. Through a series of exercises Jaime will help bring back the fun and playfulness of agreement and listening, as well heightening and game. In two person all the way to group scenes, things get complicated when plot enters the mix, Jaime will advocate for exploring relationships and character over plot every time. This class is a must for improvisers who want to remember why the basics are the basis of good scene-work, and how to avoid conflict and control. This class will help awaken the spirit of following the follower so together we can build something great! Jaime will side coach and help bring your scene-work to its fullest potential! |
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Jaime is an alum of Second City Detroit, and is an actress, writer, and teacher who resides in Los Angeles. She has taught (and performed) all over the country - some favorite spots include: Washington Improv Theater, Dallas Comedy House, The Arcade Theater, The Blue Brick Theatre, Go! Comedy, Comedy Arena, The Siren, Planet Ant and The Sketch School. Abroad she has taught at Angel Comedy in the UK, ICC Theater in Denmark, and Improv Utopia Ireland. As a television actress Jaime has had recurring roles on AP Bio, Modern Family, The Big Show Show, Night Court, and Disney's hit show KC Undercover. Some of her other credits include appearances on Parks and Recreation, 2 Broke Girls, Detroiters, Future Man and more. She has voiced characters on the hit animation shows Bob's Burgers and The Great North. Jaime appears in one episode of the new show Mid-Century Modern, on Hulu! Find out more about her on her website: www.JaimeMoyer.com