“Alchemy and smoke in a bottle” – contemporary improvisational theater in Poland and the United States
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18778/1505-9057.40.05Keywords:
impro, improv, improvisational theater, improvised theater, American pop theater, experimental theater, Del Close, Keith Johnstone, Charna Halpern, Mick NapierAbstract
The article is an attempt to capture improvisational theater as a modern dynamic phenomenon through analyzing its features, definitions and traits in order to characterize the genre and to systematize the current state of knowledge on the subject matter. By comparing and contrasting various aspects and notions of impro(v) in Poland and the United States, the study not only looks at the theater of improvisation through the prism of the “relocation” of the form from its original grounds and implementing it in within a different tradition, but also shows the experimental flexibility of the genre within different cultural traditions and structures. Based largely on interviews with Polish and American improvisers alike, this article is an in-medias-res case study of the contemporary improvised theater in Poland and the USA.
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