Taylor Riedeman

On August 9th, we discuss character building. We delve deep into things like building a platform and how to use emotion and physicality to create a character. Listen as our guest, Taylor Riedeman, demonstrates some of her quirky and out-of-the-box characters and explains how she conceptualizes them. Our history segment presents the story of the birth of Saturday Night Live (yup, improvisers started that sh*t!).  Finally, we have a special improv game in store for you that might be a tad naughty (how’s that for a teaser?!).

Taylor Riedeman is a writer, improviser, and comedian living in Reno, Nevada. Acting has always been part of her life, but she found her true performance community in improv 4 years ago. Taylor is an active member of Reno Improv Theater, where she performs weekly with her teams We Digress and Ghost. Improv is both an artistic and spiritual endeavor for her, and she has recently found a love for teaching improv as well. She does have a life outside of improv, though (sort of). She’s addicted to 30-day challenges and her weakness is bestselling books with flashy titles. She’s also newly disappointed that Friends will no longer be available on Netflix.

Chris Thigpen

In this episode, we go deep talking about our community and the value of having a strong one. We talk about why loving the people you play with is so important, even if they are not your favorite folks to begin with. Learn about the place of competition in improv, how you can support your fellow players, and how that affects us all on-stage. Nerd out on a bit of history with us, introducing you to Viola Spolin, the fore-mother of improv in the US. We will talk about beats and how to recognize them as well as what it means to be a good player off-stage. 

Our guest, Chris Thigpen, is an amazing improviser who plays on two house teams at the Reno Improv, Ghost Team and All Things Reconsidered. As a natural creative, Chris uses improv as a place to express his talents as an actor and writer. As a businessman, Chris owns his own successful marketing agency, Ace Studios. He is also a filmmaker, photographer, and screenwriter. 

 For The Love of Improv

Hey y’all, guess what?! We had this crazy idea to start a podcast where we sit around and talk about improv for, like, a whole hour! I know, I know… this is the stuff dreams are made of… and we are dreaming big!  After a long hard minute, we knew what we wanted — to learn about improv, to talk with the greatest improvisers we know, and, of course, to play. So we built a show around what we love most: improv and all the craziness that comes with it. Alas, For The Love Of Improv was born. 

We are Katie Welsh and Jesi Wicks:  students, players and lovers of improv. As we grow our improv brains, so do you – right along side us. And when our brains get too big, we’ll just grow another one! We will present topics about technique, philosophy, history, games, and speaking the lingo. As we meet amazing improv artists and pick their brains, you will be right there with us, adding grey matter to your improv noggin. Pretty soon, we won’t have enough room in the studio for all those brains!

You can support us in a few ways. First, just listen. Second, keep playing and sharing in the small but enormously amazing improv community around the globe. Next, tell your friends, your frenemies your anenomes. Help us get the word out by sharing and subscribing. We really want to keep this going as long as we can, and the more people listening, the easier that becomes. Finally, if you want to be in the inner circle, head over to our Patreon page to become a member.  If you are able to contribute, yes!  That is so awesome and thank you! The money we earn there will go towards keeping the lights and the mics on so we can continue to produce our show.

We will post upcoming guests and topics right here on this blog so that you have a chance to comment and ask questions before the show. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Google podcasts and all the major places you get your content after our first show has been live for 24 hours.

Thanks so much and we look forward to learning, playing and loving improv with you soon!

Jesi & Katie