Join Big Blue Door this fall for Charlottesville’s best performance classes! Longform improv is the fun, liberating, and hilarious system that teaches you to listen better, enjoy the moment, and love your own observations, peeves, and eccentricities!
In addition to our performance groups, Big Blue Door graduates have performed in other comedy groups, stand-up sets, bands, videos, movies, and plays in Charlottesville, New York, and beyond, but the heart of what we do is giving everyone a few hours each week of joy with smart, funny people laughing at the strangeness of people, situations, and life!
Absolutely no performance or theater experience necessary!
Here’s the program:
IMPROV 1: CHARACTER & SCENE
Big Blue Door’s fast and furious introduction to longform improv comedy! Full description here.
SUNDAY 1:15-3:15
Studio 20
McGuffey Art Center
8 sessions starting 9/13
$225
Improv I introduces students to the joys of longform improv. Learn to accept and add to the contributions of your scene partners, find funny scene and character ideas from your own lived experience, and share true personal stories that are entertaining and honest.
Improv I: Character & Scene is a stand-alone class, but if you want to go farther in your improv training, we also offer:
IMPROV 2: CUTS & CALLBACKS
Build on your Improv I techniques with ‘Second Beats’ ‘Tags’ and more! Full description here.
Prerequisite: Improv 1 with Big Blue Door!
SUNDAY 3:45-5:45
Studio 20
McGuffey Art Center
8 sessions starting 9/20/26
$225
Improv 2 expands techniques for playing characters and scenes by exploring confessions, recollections, philosophy, and other forms of speech. Performers learn to call back scenes to locate the same characters in future points in time and place, and teams can move actions and tag characters to explore aspects of their lives and perspectives. Performers learn new ways to begin sets as well.
Improv 2: Cuts & Callbacks is great for actors, writers, and anyone interested in the arts.
IMPROV 3: BEATS & BEYOND
Group scenes, new openings, and third beats come together for the original long form, the Harold. Full description here.
Prerequisite: Improv 2 with Big Blue Door!
SUNDAYS 6:30-8:30
Studio 20
McGuffey Art Center
8 sessions starting 9/27
$225
Improv 3 explores group scenes, group games, and group openings, exploring how to create scenes with more than two characters, and learning to tie relationships and stories together in the original longform set, called the Harold.
For graduates of Improv 3, Big Blue Door offers performance opportunities year around. This fall we’ll run both a Tuesday and a Thursday performance group, each exploring its own particular form. Schedules for shows and rehearsals are still TBD, but we know we’ll have shows on Friday, Oct 2nd, and Friday, Nov 6th.
We’ll have our Improv 4 run up for signup in a week or two!
For questions about any Big Blue Door class or program, email info@bigbluedoor.org!
Big Blue Door 