Lights, camera, spontaneity. With the summer heat of July comes the annual Sarasota Improv Festival, which has brought premier world-renowned improv ensembles to Sarasota for seven years now. This year, however, Florida Studio Theatre welcomes exciting changes to its festival. These include a new Director of Improvisation, Will Luera, and international improv ensembles from Europe and South America.

Luera came to Florida Studio Theatre all the way from Boston, MA. Managing Director Rebecca Hopkins met Luera back in the early years of the festival when he worked for ImprovBoston as its Artistic Director. When Hopkins was in the market for additional assistance with the improv festival, she said that Luera was just one of many that applied for the position, but that he turned out to be the “perfect fit” for the job. Luera has worked with the theater for nine months now and is currently tackling his first improv festival as director.

Luera isn’t the only addition this year though, the others are coming to the theater all the way from Madrid and Argentina. That’s right, for the first time in festival history Florida Studio Theatre is hosting two international improv groups. The first of these is an ensemble known as ImproMadrid, which originated in Spain, but performs completely in English. This three-man team has almost 15 years of experience with unscripted theatre performance.

Argentinian solo-improviser Omar Argentino Galván is the second international performer to make an appearance at the festival. In addition to showcasing as a one-man-show, Galván also improvises completely in Spanish with an English translator. For his performance, he collects suggestions from the audience written on post-it-notes and throughout the show acts out the audience’s ideas. Although his work is done in Spanish, Hopkins assures that regardless of language, the audience gets a kick out of him.  

Even with the theater’s new additions, one thing that hasn’t seemed to change is the festival’s crowd-pleasing environment. With one day full of improv left, check out the theater’s festival listing for performances by these new international groups as well as returning artists such as Baby Wants Candy and Available Cupholders to enjoy a sidesplitting show.

For schedule and tickets, click link below.

Sarasota Improv Festival 2015