Wellington Improvisation Troupe

The Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT) is Wellington’s not-for-profit, community-based improvisational theatre group. WIT performs and teaches the skills of improvisational theatre at community venues around the Wellington region.

Theatre is made up on the spot by some of Wellington’s leading improvisers and courageous newcomers alike, based on suggestions from the audience. WIT players share a love of storytelling and work together as a team to inspire the audience. WIT theatre is sometimes serious, often hilarious and always totally unpredictable.

WIT members performed in the ‘Micetro’ show that won the New Zealand International Fringe Festival Best Comedy Award in 2003, and decided it was about time they formed a group that had a name. WIT brought together many of Wellington’s casual improvoholics, out of work actors and bored public servants. Now made up of thirty members, the group welcomes people from all walks of life.

The establishment of WIT reflects the enduring popularity of improvisation around the globe and its resurgence in New Zealand.

WIT launched all of its core shows over 2004, participated in the New Zealand International Fringe and Comedy Festivals and become licensed as an International Theatresports Institute group. WITs core shows are:
* Battle of WITs, a short-form elimination format that pits beginners against experienced improvisers in the quest for a used light-bulb.
* Gorilla Theatre, a licensed International Theatresports Format where four experienced improvisers compete as directors of scenes to take home a prize – the troupe’s resident gorilla.
* The Improv Divas, New Zealand’s first all-female improvisation act that performs short-form improv – ‘highly inventive’ (National Business Review).
* Joe Improv, New Zealand’s first professional youth improv act and WIT’s militant youth wing.

WIT Objectives

WIT’s specific objectives as listed in the incorporated society’s founding document are as follows:
* To promote, develop and foster the performance of improvised theatre and comedy in the Wellington region.
* To teach the skills of improvised theatre and comedy through workshops, classes and any other means to members and to the wider Wellington community.
* To encourage the having of fun and the not taking of oneself too seriously.

WIT Creative Philosophy

The Creative Philosophy of WIT resides in the foundation of the teachings of Keith Johnstone, a world renowned teacher in the art of improvisation and its links to the theatre.

WIT has three creative drivers – telling stories, cooperation and having fun. WIT believe these drivers are interdependent and create the best kind of improvisational theatre. This philosophy makes WIT unique in New Zealand and is reflected in its choice of a not-for-profit organisational structure. Comedy is regarded as the pre-requisite that improvisation is best known for on a public front. However, the philosophy of WIT aims to also explore beyond the bounds of purely comedic improvisation.