We are an Improvisation theatre group from Antwerp. Originally founded as an regular theatre group in the year 2013, we quickly found our place in the realm of improvisation. We do weekly trainings on Tuesday and perform shows every few months.
As an English-speaking group in a Dutch-speaking city, we tend to have many international flavors in our group. We have expats and PHD students from abroad, but also locals who are happy to join the international bunch that is Mixed but also very much United.
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| Date | Show | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 01/02/2025 - start 20:00 | Upstaged! | Peperfabriek |
| 08/03/2025 - start 20:00 | Wonder Women | De Groene Waterman |
| 05/04/2025 - start 20:00 | Upstaged! | Peperfabriek |
Almost every Tuesday we gather at Peperfabriek in the center of Antwerp. Trainings start at 20.00 but we expect people to be there on time. Luckely we have volunteers who operate the bar, so before or after a training you can always get a drink and hang around with the other members.
Anyone can join a training, they are in effect open trainings. There is no need to register or announce your visit. We do have a whatsapp group where we announce the trainings and where our regulars indicate if they are coming.
You do not need to have prior improvisation experience or general theatre experience at all, although if you have it then that is certainly something that will help you.
The trainings are free, but after each training we collect small voluntarily donations to keep the organisation running and to support the location that is hosting us.
Before a training you can find us at the bar (the green door on the back left side when entering), where we usually start meeting up at around 19.40.
Improvised theatre is probably as old as regular theatre. For example, the commedia dell'arte plays in Italy in the 16th to 18th century were mostly improvised, using a set of stock characters as a base to build stories that would differ wildly with each performance. In the rehearsels of regular actors, improvisation was often part of warmup excercises to help them get into the right state before diving into the scripts. Slowly but surely, these improvisation exercises started to get a life of their own. Those type of exercises were usually relaxed and offered fun moments because everything could take unexpected turns. Some actors started to focus more on the improvisation as a goal in it self and were looking to bring the art of improvisation to the stage. As a modern art form it emerged in the 1950s and 1960s, with directers and teachers like Viola Spolin and Keith Johnstone who dedicated their careers on exploring all the methodes and principles behind improvised theatre. They laid the foundations for new generations of improv actors who devised new show formats and other ways to bring improvisation theatre to the audiences.
Training improv theatre is mostly a matter of teaching and practicing techniques to build interesting scenes. These could be, but are certainly not limited to: creating characters, working together as a group, training memory and quick reflexes, miming objects and locations, employing emotions, searching for the comedy or drama potential in a scene, etc.
Improvisation theatre can take several forms. The most well known are shortform, longform and impromusical. Shortform consists of a series of distinct games, where each game includes a challenge or a handicap. As the name implies, shortform scenes are short and do not form a connected storyline. Such shows are almost always focused on entertainment, and thus the comedy value is important. Shortform shows are often performed in pubs, which is why shortform scenes are often also called bargames. With longform you can see coherent stories that span multiple scenes and might have a clear story arc, although they might as well be a series of seperate scenes around a common theme without a classic story structure. Longform spends more time in creating characters that might be intriguing and recognizable, and therefor longform offers a wider range of emotion beyond just comedy. Impromusical is where actors and musicians work more closely together, and bring an improvised musical together. These three terms do not define every aspect of improv, and there is always room for a certain amount of overlap. Some improv groups focus on one form, other groups cover all bases.
You can email us at info@mixedandunited.be or use the form below: