Ensemble Team w/ Diana Brown
Saturday & Sunday
SAVI FEST ENSEMBLE TEAM
Meeting
Saturday 9:30am-3:30pm
Sunday 9:30am-12:30pm
Headlining Sunday 1:30pm Mainstage
Rogues, Ruffians and Wiley Wits:
Improvising Bawdy Characters in the Style of Shakespeare
What to expect:
Join Diana Brown for this workshop to show experience that requires no extensive knowledge of Shakespeare, just the willingness to explore the bawdier side of Elizabethan life. A ribald romp inspired by the bawdy, and in truth, a bit naughty side of Shakespeare.
We'll review the six levels of Elizabethan Society: Monarchy, Nobility, Gentry, Merchants, Yeomen, and Laborers. These classes are determined by ones fame, wealth, skills, and even birth. Please note, in our presentation, anyone can play any roll they feel called to play.
We’ll adventure to the pubs and inns and alleyways populated with scurrilous rogues and bawds lively, quick. Delightful characters, deliciously flawed with aspirations of greatness.
And we’ll explore the way Shakespeare used rhythm and rhyme, simile, metaphor and imagery to tempting effect. And spend some time focusing on Original Pronunciation, the way the actors actually spoke in Shakespeare's time.
Our efforts will culminate in an improvised performance at SAVI Fest 2025.
Resources and reference materials for your review, provided prior to the festival
What to bring with you:
Anything to wear that gets you into an Elizabethan state of mind.
Tunics, close fitting pants or leggings, boots, gowns, corsets and poet shirts, etc.
"For thou art fascinating in ways most infinite!" -Diana Brown
Ensemble Team details:
The ensemble team is free to apply and participate.
Consist of 12 members
Includes:
9 Hours of Instruction and direction
Headlining performance.
Requirements and restrictions:
At least one year of improv training experience.
Basic foundation in improvised scene work.
Not otherwise performing at SAVI FEST
SAVI FEST does not assist with travel or accommodations.
Participants will have to adhere to our SAVI FEST Code of Conduct.
Diana Brown is an improv artist, teaching artist, actor, producer, director and voiceover talent. She was voted Most Valuable Mentor and Teacher at the San Francisco Improv Festival. She leads the improv program at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s School of Theatre. Diana is an instructor, producer and a member of the leadership team with Leela Improv Theatre in San Francisco. She uses applied improvisation in medical settings to improve patient/provider communication.
She’s presented Improv workshops, intensives and “workshop to show” experiences at the Improv Fest Ireland 2024, 2024 Queen City Comedy Experience, 2024 Uptown Improv Festival, 2024 Vancouver Improv Festival, the 2024 Tucson Comedy Arts Festival, 2024 Ocean State Improv Festival, inaugural SAVI Fest, 2024 Gather Spring Improv Retreat 2024, Cornerstone Improv, O-Town Improv festival, Countdown Improv Festival, Camp Improv Utopia West, 2023 Queen City Comedy Experience, IMPRIDE, Unscrewed Theatre, 2nd Best Comedy Fest, Denver Improv Festival, Vintage Improv Fest, Unscrewed Theater in Tucson, AZ, All Out Comedy Theater in Oakland, CA, Sealevel, San Francisco, CA, and Phoenix Theater, San Francisco, CA. Diana enjoys helping improv artists to find and amplify their unique gifts. She genuinely believes everyone is infinitely fascinating and endeavors to instill that belief in her students.
Diana plays in the Shakespeare inspired trio Gamesome Frolic, she's half of the duo Bingewatch, she plays in the Tennessee Williams inspired duo Fleeting Reminiscence, the trios POPTOP, The Witches, the duos Horrible People, DJ, Secret Lives of Villains, Salt and Pepper, and Davenport & Brown, and appears with the Twilight Zone inspired ensemble But of Mind.
Diana is a guest artist with BATS Improv in San Francisco and a member of the acting pool with the San Francisco sketch comedy company Killing My Lobster. She has appeared at the Vancouver Improv Festival, Uptown Improv Festival, Improv Fest Ireland, Gather Spring Improv Retreat, Rise Comedy Fest, SF Sketchfest, The Queen City Comedy Experience, San Francisco Improv Fest, Improvaganza Hawaii Festival of Improv, San Diego Improv Fest, O-Town Improv Fest, New York Improv Festival, Vintage Improv Fest, 2nd Best Comedy Fest, New Orleans Improv Fest, Twin Cities Improv Fest, Alaska State Improv Fest, Tucson Comedy Arts Fest and others. Diana appears in scripted theater productions including Playground Solo Fest 2025, Spoleto Festival, and at theaters and theatre festivals around the country.
SAVI FEST is sponsored by: Second Beat Improv Theater and Improv Utopia.
