Improv on Impulse: The Other Half of the Craft — Eight Weeks in Reston

Event description

Presented jointly by Next Level Improv and Bethesda Improv Theater

In improv, the words matter. So do your reactions — the laugh, the flinch, the shift you feel inside when your scene partner speaks. These are what grip an audience and make them forget they're watching a show. This class trains you to work from that place on purpose.

In impulse-based improv, dialogue emerges from what you feel. Relationships emerge from your behavior. And plot emerges from both, without anyone steering the scene. It's more believable that way, because your spontaneous reactions never lie.

What you’ll work on

Over eight weeks you'll put your physical and emotional impulses, not your thoughts and plans, in the lead:

• Entering a scene authentically, before the first word is spoken
• Letting relationships reveal themselves through behavior, not exposition
• Generating emotional heat through physical action, object work, and discovery
• Building story from what characters do because of what they feel

No need to write the story in your head. No need to wait for the clever line to arrive. You react. The scene follows.

What changes when you train this way

• Scenes feel real. You stop performing at the audience and start living something with your partner.

• Story emerges naturally. Plot comes from behavior and human consequence, not mental templates.

• “Not knowing” becomes home ground. The unknown stops being something to manage; it’s where the most resonant work lives.

“The workshop exposed facets of myself I had never before experienced. Powerful. I need to do it again.” — Jonathan Bartlett, improviser

This is not more of what you know. It’s the other half of the craft, and it makes everything you already do land harder.

Details

• Eight consecutive Thursday nights, 7:00–9:00 PM, September 24 through November 12, 2026

• Tuition: $400

• Enrollment limited to 16 — kept small so you get personal attention, form real bonds with your classmates, and don’t wait long for your turn when scenes go up at the end of each night

• Location: Brown’s Chapel, 1575 Brown’s Chapel Rd, Reston, VA 20194 — despite the name, a Reston Association community hall, not a religious venue

• Abundant parking next to the building

Your instructor

Gary Jacobs is the founding artistic director of the 31-year-old Precipice Improv Theater and of Bethesda Improv Theater. He has taught and directed improv for over 40 years and produced the first commercial improv show in the Washington, D.C. area.

“Gary is a wealth of knowledge with a unique perspective on the craft. Our troupe will definitely be having him back time and time again!” — Mathew Dearing, Owner/Director, Chaos Comedy