Workshops

7 Things You Need to Master Improv This week’s guest blog post is from Ryan Karels (New York City's Upright Citizens Brigade) who taught Level 2 and 3 improv at LMA (Sydney), Term 2, 2017. While teaching improv at LMA, I'll note in the scene, "This is more of a spiritual note...” So LMA asked me to write [...]

Master and Apprentice Alike This post is by Dan Pavatich,  LMA's Artistic Director I have been lucky enough to perform with some extremely funny and talented people, some of whom have been performing for decades, and others for only a matter of weeks. Such was the case last night at The Night Shift, when I had the [...]

Vulnerability Sucks* Thanks to a timely tweet back in February, I took a risk and joined my first ever improv class at Laugh Masters Academy. Having only 20 minutes to run to the theatre, I came in late, sweaty and out of breath. In front of me were 12 friendly strangers waiting to be introduced [...]

What Vanilla Ice Didn’t Tell You About Agile/Lean Methods I have been working in the IT Industry for over a decade and in that time we have seen massive changes in how people are approaching how work gets done, people at all levels are collaborating in entirely new ways. From processes and practices thought up [...]

How To Get The Most Out Of Your Improv Class It's the start of a new term, and that means you're about to be walking into a room ready for some make-'em-ups with a batch of new (and some known) faces. Here's some tips for getting the most out of your class, whether it's the [...]

Joe Bill is Bringing The Power to LMA! Mr. Joe Bill is will be at LMA Sydney for one night only to run his world famous Power Improv Scenes Workshop The focus of this workshop is how to play improv Scenes in any context, but specifically Long Form and Narrative, from a place of strength. We’ll play [...]

Kristin Hensley: Business Improv Training is Invaluable The lovely Kristin Hensley recently came over from Los Angeles to facilitate some workshops and corporate training sessions with LMA. Here she shares a few thoughts on why improv business training is vital for innovation and teamwork, and how saying "Yes, and..." and using Active Listening to support [...]

No Joke! Improv is Seriously Good for Business. There’s more to improvisation than comedy - and it’s not just for funny people. In fact, improv is primarily about learning to react authentically and stay in the present moment at a very high level. This awareness has all sorts of business benefits which is why we [...]

Chicago's loss is Austraia's gain! Laugh-Masters Academy is super excited to announce the addition of Sophie Long to our roster of Australian based Instructors. Sophie is an Performer, Writer, Director, Teacher and Coach in stand-up, sketch comedy, musical comedy, and storytelling. She has recently returned home from Chicago - the "birthplace of improv comedy" - [...]

LMA is thrilled to welcome Sketch Comedy legend Tony Starr to the roster. Tony has recently relocated to Sydney from L.A. and boy has he hit the ground running. In under a year he has already developed, co-wrote and performed in the Show Giddyup Garfunkle at the Sydney Fringe Festival and regularly performs around town. We're extremely excited to have Tony [...]

The Hard Truth: Be Kind I frequently have performers ask me for the hard truth, the tough note. "Be brutal" they might ask, or "tell me like it is" or "I haven't got feedback on my work in a long time. Help!" or "People like my work, but I feel bored. What is wrong?!" It [...]

Kristin Hensley Joins the LMA Roster We are thrilled to welcome Kristin Hensley to LMA and look forward to having her down to run some of our very popular "Intro to Improv" weekend intensives,  a special "on camera audition" workshop just for Actors, and her famous "How to Break into Hollywood" class. It's all coming your way, [...]

Guest Blog: Kate Murphy, Backbone Brisbane Introduce yourself and what you do: Hi I'm Kate, I work at Backbone Youth Arts as a workshop facilitator. I teach students age 9-13 yrs. We do lots of fun things in class, ranging from performance skills, story building and characterisation. I myself am an improvisation junky... I introduced [...]

Special Guest Instructor: Craig Cackowski Can you say L E G E N D ! That's a rhetorical question. Of course you can. And never has that word been more apt than to describe the most recent Impro-Master to join the LMA roster - Craig Cackowski. Craig is coming in 2016. Yes, we know that seems like [...]

Dear Actors, Sorry... Dear Actors, We know you've been burned. We know there's lots of cowboy outfits out there teaching all sorts of "improv" classes, and from what we've been told, chances are you didn't quite get what you'd hoped for from your last one. Maybe you took a class led by someone who attended one or two [...]

Billy Connolly: 3 Ways Improv Can Improve Your Career Read all about it over at Fast Company, then come back here to book a corporate training day for your team at work. And in the spirit of LMA bringing top talent from overseas down under, please enjoy this old gem below.