![SAPPY POST INCOMINGLast Saturday we closed the 2025 NZ Improv Festival with Scene Painting, where we literally put paint on the stage at BATS (and then spent 4 hours repainting it black). Swipe to see a small difference from the start to the end!This Festival was my third as artistic co-director, and also my last. This gig has been joyous, challenging, phenomenally rewarding, at times all-consuming, and a career highlight.Over three years we’ve helped kids become who they are through free workshops, supported new ensembles and shows, created opportunities for people to share what they’ve been working on, make lifelong friends, hatch schemes, find inspiration, and brought together some of the finest minds from around Aotearoa and the world to generally share the magic of improvisation.Thank you so much to everyone who’s worked on the festival in those years: Austin, Em, D’, Guanny, Marea, Abby, Eleanor, Elliott, Matt H, Campbell, Katie, Millie, Emerson, all the musos, tech operators, volunteers, and staff at BATS. Plus all the teachers, performers and directors who’ve come to share their mahi, and the Trust (Jen, Claire, Lisa, Tai, Tara) who’ve made it all possible.Thank you also the community around the festival — every year my favourite day of the festival was the first one, where people trickled into the foyer at BATS Theatre and it all went from being a series of spreadsheets and emails (and Airtables, thank you Abby) into a real thing that people would lift, carry, and enjoy. Thank you for being here with us, together, now.And finally, to Matt Powell, my co-director, co-conspirator, and dear friend. Thank you for sharing this journey with me, for every Monday night meeting, for buoying me when I was down, for caring so much about this festival and what it represents. I couldn’t imagine having done this with anybody else. We did it. We ran a festival.Bonus: we created mix-and-match stickers of improv quotes by D&D alignment, tag urself etc x]()
SAPPY POST INCOMING
Last Saturday we closed the 2025 NZ Improv Festival with Scene Painting, where we literally put paint on the stage at BATS (and then spent 4 hours repainting it black). Swipe to see a small difference from the start to the end!
This Festival was my third as artistic co-director, and also my last. This gig has been joyous, challenging, phenomenally rewarding, at times all-consuming, and a career highlight.
Over three years we’ve helped kids become who they are through free workshops, supported new ensembles and shows, created opportunities for people to share what they’ve been working on, make lifelong friends, hatch schemes, find inspiration, and brought together some of the finest minds from around Aotearoa and the world to generally share the magic of improvisation.
Thank you so much to everyone who’s worked on the festival in those years: Austin, Em, D’, Guanny, Marea, Abby, Eleanor, Elliott, Matt H, Campbell, Katie, Millie, Emerson, all the musos, tech operators, volunteers, and staff at BATS. Plus all the teachers, performers and directors who’ve come to share their mahi, and the Trust (Jen, Claire, Lisa, Tai, Tara) who’ve made it all possible.
Thank you also the community around the festival — every year my favourite day of the festival was the first one, where people trickled into the foyer at BATS Theatre and it all went from being a series of spreadsheets and emails (and Airtables, thank you Abby) into a real thing that people would lift, carry, and enjoy. Thank you for being here with us, together, now.
And finally, to Matt Powell, my co-director, co-conspirator, and dear friend. Thank you for sharing this journey with me, for every Monday night meeting, for buoying me when I was down, for caring so much about this festival and what it represents. I couldn’t imagine having done this with anybody else. We did it. We ran a festival.
Bonus: we created mix-and-match stickers of improv quotes by D&D alignment, tag urself etc x
7 months ago
