Level 1: Beginning Improv

Level 1 Improv focuses on the basics of comedic improvisation. Students learn how to initiate scenes, build upon their scene partners' offers, and create scenes with a solid foundation. Topics covered include: agreement ("yes and"); active listening; using the environment; basic narrative skills; understanding stage status; and making your fellow improviser look good.

Level 2: Intermediate Improv

Level 2 Improv focuses entirely on the nuances of scenic improvisation. Students do scene after scene, learning to look for connections and patterns that give the scenes depth. Topics covered include: emotional and status initiations; using external game to enhance narrative while avoiding its pitfalls; finding the internal game of a scene; how to recognize the "what" and the "underlying truth" of a scene; and narrative pacing and resolution.

Level 3: Advanced Improv

Take your skills to the next level with this advanced improv class. Scenes, narrative techniques and improvised music skills are explored. Character work is focuses on creating compelling, believable characters. Class culminates in a public performance on the CCL stage.

Youth Classes

CCL offers Improv classes that are designed for kids and teens with or without prior theatre or improv experience. Students will have the opportunity to explore their abilities as performers, improve self-confidence, and just have fun. They will learn techniques of improv with some of New York's finest improv performers, creating material from their own experience and outside suggestions, to be exhibited on the final day of class in a performance for family and friends.

Improv for Business Professionals

Improv for Business Professionals provides students with tangible skills for success in a business environment. The class focuses on key techniques used by improvisers to generate ideas, organize them, and present them in a cogent, compelling manner, along with ways to optimize working in a group. The class is engaging, informative and fun. It is ideal for anyone in law, advertising, finance, publishing, education, or any field where a creative approach can spell success.

Improv for Actors

This class focuses on improvisational techniques that actors can use in auditions and when working with text scripts. Through classwork and assignments, students gain the confidence and skills needed to face the unexpected in auditions and cold readings, create three-dimenstional characters on the spot, and book the jobs they've been missing. Topics covered include: how to immediately personalize and strongly deliver copy; establishing “ownership” over material; creating character history through improvisation; and how to keep repeated material feeling fresh.

Improv for Kids

These classes are designed for kids 9-12 with or without prior theatre or improv experience. Students will have the opportunity to explore their abilities as performers, improve self-confidence, and just have fun. They will learn techniques of improv with some of New York’s finest improv performers, creating material from their own experience and outside suggestions, to be exhibited on the final day of class in a performance for family and friends.

Teen Improv Summer Intensive

Teen Improv Intensive classes are designed for kids 13-17 with or without prior theatre or improv experience. Students will have the opportunity to explore their abilities as performers, improve self-confidence, and just have fun. They will learn techniques of improv with some of New York’s finest improv performers, creating material from their own experience and outside suggestions, to be exhibited on the final day of class in a performance for family and friends.

Kid Improv Summer Intensive

Kid Improv Intensive classes are designed for kids 9-12 with or without prior theatre or improv experience. Students will have the opportunity to explore their abilities as performers, improve self-confidence, and just have fun. They will learn techniques of improv with some of New York’s finest improv performers, creating material from their own experience and outside suggestions, to be exhibited on the final day of class in a performance for family and friends.

Music Improv

This class focuses on building a strong foundation for the basics of musical improvisation. Topics covered include: creating organic melodies; how to remember a melody once it’s created; understanding and differentiating the common sections of song structure (verse, chorus, pre-chorus, bridge); and how to kick a rhyme’s behind.