5 Reasons to Take an Improv Class at National Comedy Theatre
If you’ve decided to try an improv class, the next question is where to take one. The class itself matters, but so do the people teaching it, the experience behind it and what’s available if you decide you want to keep going.
National Comedy Theatre has been performing and teaching improv in San Diego since 1999. Our classes are built from the same approach to improvisation we use onstage, but they’re designed for regular people who want to learn, play and try something different.
You Don't Need to Be a Performer
Most people who take an NCT improv class aren’t trying to become professional improvisers.
They’re teachers, engineers, scientists, lawyers, students, retirees and people from all kinds of backgrounds who thought improv sounded interesting and decided to give it a try.
Some want to become more comfortable speaking in front of people. Some want to be more spontaneous. Some are looking for a creative outlet or a way to meet people. And some just want to do something considerably more interesting than whatever they usually do on a weeknight.
Whatever brings you through the door, you start with the same fundamentals. No audition. No acting experience required. And no expectation that you already know how to be funny.
Five Reasons to Take Your Class Here
An improv class is partly about what you learn. It’s also about who you learn it from and the experience behind the training.
Learn Improv From Professional Improvisers
NCT isn’t simply an improv school. It’s a professional improv theatre, and our classes are connected directly to the work happening on our stage.
NCT instructors come from the same professional improv community that has been performing at National Comedy Theatre for decades. They aren't teaching improv only as a classroom exercise. They understand how the skills work when there is a live audience, a scene is unfolding in real time and your scene partner does something you weren't expecting.
That experience shapes the way we teach. The fundamentals you learn in class are the same fundamentals our professional improvisers rely on in performance: listening closely, making clear choices, supporting your scene partner, committing to an idea and responding honestly to what happens next.
Learn by Doing
Improv isn't something you learn from a lecture. NCT classes are active and participatory, with exercises that let you practice listening, responding, creating and collaborating from the beginning.
The skills build gradually, so you're learning through experience rather than trying to memorize a collection of rules.
Build Skills Without Making It Feel Like Work
Improv can help develop confidence, communication, creativity, spontaneity and the ability to think on your feet.
But those benefits happen while you're playing games, creating scenes and working with other people. You don't have to sit through a seminar about becoming more spontaneous.
There's Somewhere to Go After Level 1
Level 1 is the beginning, not the entire program. Students who want to continue can move through Levels 2 and 3, developing stronger scene skills, characters and more advanced improvisation.
NCT also offers continuing and specialty training, so you can keep learning for as long as improv remains something you want to pursue.
You're Learning at an Established Improv Theatre
National Comedy Theatre has been performing and teaching improv in San Diego since 1999. The training program exists alongside an active professional theatre rather than separately from it.
Students can see the same principles they're learning in class put into practice onstage, week after week, by NCT's professional improv cast.
At NCT, improv training and professional performance are part of the same theatre.
The Same Fundamentals. Two Different Rooms.
The skills students practice in class are the same fundamentals NCT’s professional improvisers rely on in performance: listening, commitment, collaboration and responding honestly in the moment.
Learn it in class. See it onstage. NCT students are learning improv inside the same professional theatre community where those skills are performed live every week.
See NCT Shows →Start with Level 1
NCT’s Level 1 improv class is designed for adults with little or no previous improv or acting experience.
You’ll learn the fundamentals in a supportive, low-pressure environment while training with instructors connected to National Comedy Theatre’s professional improv company.