The Supreme Art of Improvisation

A solo show in which Caspar Schjelbred creates from seemingly nothing – characters, scenes, situations – and narrates the hidden mechanics as they happen: the impulses followed or discarded, the choices, the moments of doubt. The audience watches creation in real time and hears the decision-making underneath it.

Part performance, part live dissection.

Each mechanism is named in a single sentence, then proved on stage. At one point the audience is invited to test a core exercise from their seats – and finds that the mechanism works for them too.

The inspiration, and the difference

The form owes a debt to Jos Houben’s L’Art du rire, which dissects the mechanics of laughter. This show turns that attention on improvisation itself – but not where improvisation is usually examined.

Most accounts of improvisational theatre are about response: listening, accepting, building on what a partner offers. This is about what comes before any of that – creation sourced from oneself, from the body, with no partner and no given material to react to.

Houben reveals why we laugh; Schjelbred reveals how an improviser generates something from nothing, alone. And proves it can be trained.

This is where his teaching and his performing meet. The individual foundation of improvisation – sourcing from yourself before you ever turn to another – is the core of what he teaches. Here it is made visible: one performer, generating live, with the mechanics exposed.

Dates

Tallinn Fringe Festival • 21–22 August 2026 • tickets

Paris Fringe • 9–13 September 2026 (French version) • ticket information TBA

History

Festival Impro en Seine, Paris (2024) · Tallinn Fringe Festival (2024)

Photographs: Chloé Crepel