Last month Impro Melbourne hosted its annual Schools Theatresports™ challenge post-COVID. The
entire Impro Melbourne Company volunteered their time to host the event in Elwood, and mentor
students from 8 schools, and across Years 7-12. The below is written by some participating students
and teachers.
“Theatresports™ is a ‘competitive’ version of Improvised drama, designed to give audiences the same
feeling that one might have at a sporting match. You may have seen it be displayed in various school
events such as a house Theatresports™ competition, or on TV in shows like ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’.
A Theatresports™ team involves 3-5 people, but scenes can involve any amount of people from that
team. Each scene will be scored out of 5 by each of three judges, and essentially the highest-scoring
team at the end of the show wins. Once it’s your turn to go up on stage, your creativity and
expression runs the show. The golden rule of improv in general is to always make your partners look
good, so making sure you interact with them and accept any offers they might want to introduce to
the scene. Some light-hearted jokes may also make the judges’ laugh a bit, which is always good.” –
Gabriel Di Falco, Year 9
“The Impro Melbourne Theatresports™ Challenge was held at the Phoenix Theatre at Elwood College,
and it was against teams from different schools. When we got there, we did an hour-long workshop
that was run by some of the Impro Melbourne staff. We met with our mentors who work with
IM and helped us a lot throughout the day. We chose the games that we wanted to play, and then it
was showtime! All the teams performed in front of an audience, and everyone did so well. After
each game that a team played, the judges gave scores, and the team at the end of the day with the
best scores won the whole competition. There was the award ceremony, where the judges gave
awards for the best line of dialogue, best physical offer and most supportive player. After the
Intermediate ceremony, the seniors did their performance, and at the end of the day, we were lucky
enough that both of our teams came home with trophies!” – Liv Talko, Year 8
“Each year, we hold a Theatresports™ competition at our school which runs pretty similarly to what
we did. We played in our houses, with a Senior and Intermediate division. From then,
our two school teams were picked, one for the senior comp and one for intermediate. We practiced
every Friday before school – it took a while to get used to waking up so early! In the end it was
worth it though, because we all ended up being pretty great friends. We got pretty good at the
games too! Then we had an awesome workshop with an Impro Melbourne company member, who
helped us to make our scenes better and taught us some new games. We all had a great time and by
the end we were much more confident than before!” – Emily Lynch, Year 8
“I enjoy improvising because there is a constant element of surprise to it. Particularly in groups, you
can’t control where the scene goes, you just need to embrace what’s happened and find a way to
build on it. This act of building on a scene has given me the opportunity to be creative in a different
way from what would usually be expected in a performance space. Improvisation has taught me
valuable skills like quick thinking, responding to unexpected situations and working in a team. These
skills have helped me in everyday life situations, as well as on the stage. Additionally, participating in
improvisation has built my confidence when facing these situations.” – Lisette Wilkinson, Year 11
“Participating in the Impro Melbourne Theatresports™ challenge has been a fantastic experience for
my students. Seeing them grow as performers and develop friendships across year levels has been
wonderful, as has to see them develop a love of improvising. Improvising is such a powerful tool for
young people, that teaches them to think in different ways and work together to problem-solve and
be creative – they’ve even started making up their own Theatresports™ games! And now they want to
start getting ready for next year!” – Tim Roach, Drama teacher
Our acclaimed impro workshops are now available to all students via our teen workshop courses starting next week in Frankston and Melbourne.