XI 2023, Barcelona Improv Festival

Another festival where I directed Mikrokosmos with an international cast. I taught, jammed, and helped organize, as the festival’s acting director. I don’t have any photos yet, but I will.

VIII 2023, Ohana, Slovenia

Finally full of energy, I enjoyed every minute of our creative week. We worked on formats like The Last of Us, on what the audience thought, on specific skills, played word association games for an hour, played characters 24/7, hiked in the rain and said poetry under shooting stars. I love every second.

III 2023, Festival in Budapest

The previous edition in which Bebe and I participated took the form of a conference – this time we had a classic improv festival with countries from the Visegrad Group. I directed my “Mikrokosmos”, I directed the final performance with Andrew Hefler and we “won” the Cage Match with Nora.

Komedy Baby, Gdańsk, Poland

Throughout the year, Magda Drojman and I hosted stand-up open mics, in Polish and English. A lot of people run through the stage and the audience during this time.

November 2023, Improfest, Kraków

It’s impossible not to be at Improfest. This time I had the pleasure of playing in Maestro, run by my close friend Vid Sodnik from Slovenia, I played a blind duet with Liz Peters from the UK and acted as a mentor during the night playing.

X 2022, Improdrom, Bydgoszcz

I again had the pleasure of playing in the play “Soundpainting”, directed by Omar Galvan. This form requires at least several hours of training to master the language of gestures used by the conductor-director to guide actors, musicians and dancers. For me, playing this show is the highest form of letting myself be carried away by the flow.

I was also very happy to play our short show inspired by the series “The Office”, using the mechanics of my old improv group.

VIII 2022, Surgery

“After they slit your throat, stand-up comedy doesn’t seem so terryfing after all” – I thought, and now I’ve done 12 shows and had 1 thyroid surgery. I’m sharing this, because you will see the scar anyway, and maybe now you’ll pay attention to your symptoms. That’s what I wrote after I woke up in hospital: “Graves-Basedow was the reason why I couldn’t make any plans for last months, and in general couldn’t do much. I’ll be resting now and then I’ll be back with my fucking energy that Graves-Basedow disease was taking away for quite a long time. If you feel constantly tired, you have a low mood often, you don’t sleep well, you have crazy metabolism, slow or fast, you lose your hair, you have anxiety – add to your blood tests TSH. And later FT3 and FT4. I know the most common is Hashimoto and hypothyroidism among women, and I’m the only one I know with hyperthyrodism, but my male friends – I know our culture doesn’t let you admit psychological symptoms, but I know a man, who got rid of parathyroid tumor thanks to fast reaction, before much physical symptoms. I’ll elaborate, when I’m not that drugged, druuuugs maaaaan, hospitals have them!” Now I’m feeling much better already, so the upcoming season gonna be on fiiiiireeeee!

VII 2022, JO – International Improv Festival, Toruń, Poland

Another edition of a beautiful festival, in a beautiful place. I had the pleasure to play with my 7 Women in Different Ages, with a guest appearance by the brilliant Inbal Lori from Israel / Berlin. In addition, there was an opportunity to play a spontaneous duo with the equally talented Kiki Hohnen from the USA / Amsterdam. Both performances were vibrating fluffy balls of joyful energy. Great joy.

III and VI 2022, Ladies’ Comedy Nights, Gdańsk, Poland

On the Women’s Day, Kasia Rytter launched a beautiful series of girls’ comedy nights. She gathered a group of inspiring local comics to give the audience an evening of improv and stand-up. Also! Women’s Day will go down in history as my stand-up debut!

V 2022, Salto Fest, Poland

For the second year in a row, Salto Events organized a festival for friends, with improv, silent disco, beer pong and lots of activities. Photo with Magda and Agnieszka from my workshop team. Powerpuff Girls! / photo by Photkara

IX 2021, ImprovCamp, Poland

“For the Love of Jokes” was the subject of this ImproKamp. Using comedy structures in impro and building comedy characters. Adding a little seriousness to escalate the comedic feel. Lots of quotes from comedy books!

VII 2021, Toruń, Poland

The return of Polish festivals opened the JO – International Improv Festival in Toruń. I had the pleasure to host the second day with the wonderful Karolina Pańczyk, and we played with our Spice Girls, I mean 7 Women in Different Ages. As if that was not enough, before the festival I got the task to play the game “To the Moon” and then play a final show inspired by it. Oh, how good it was to feel the festival atmosphere again and see talented people on stage!

Summer 2020, Lipusz, Poland

The only offline workshops that happened in 2020 were two ImprovCamps in Lipusz, Poland, trying to be as safe, as possible, and mostly working outdoors. One of them with dedicated to sketch writing for improvisers.

V 2020: Lockdown.

7 Women of Different Ages got nominated for Improv Rap Challenge, not improvised per se, but by improvisers. Thank you Grupa Ludzi. We nominate Slavic Party 7/24, Impy, Reset and IGLU.

III 2020, TVN, WARSAW, POLAND

• I was a guest of a Good Morning TVN tv show as the expert of improvisation, and I briefly introduced to people, who were mostly at homes already on home office, because the whole country… and the continent was getting shut down.
• You can take a look at the VIDEO HERE.
• You may ask “how did you get there?”, and I must say, I’m asking myself, too. They just texted me, invited, hosted, and somehow I was  shy to ask in advance, and when I asked in a message afterwords, they never texted me back, as their one morning stand with me was over! We’ll never know.

photos: Serena Offidani

XI 2019, IMPROFEST, KRAKÓW, POLAND

• What can I say, Improfest is just epic. Look!
• I watched 6 hours of shows every day, I taught my „The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” workshop, I saw Baby Wants Candy for the first time, and I left the party early, and woke up early, because I messed up my teaching hours. And I helped with social media, which I find important – quite often festivals’ social media are active before the festival, then they are dead during festival, there is one „thank you” post after, and half a year later there come some photos!

X 2019, PODAJ PAGAJ, GDAŃSK, POLAND

• Time to celebrate and push our local improv community, and see what’s happening currently. I directed mixed cast for „Bonnie and Clyde” show, watched some others, and in the end we had a moderated (by me) discussion on how can we help the local community grow – I wrote an article about it, which you can read HERE.

photos: Przemysław Obarski

IX 2019, IMPROV COMEDY RIGA, LATVIA 

• With Kaspars Silavs, Anna Pauksa, Luize Beca and Josh Wilson we performed a very funny and crazy show – first half was a classic „Livingroom”, and the second was based on that day’s workshops, about consequences of what people believe.
• I taught with pleasure a full weekend of workshops, divided in three topics chosen by Organizers:
  – „Mindf*cks”, improv crossfit, games messing up our brains.
  – „The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, film way of building characters in shades of grey.
  – „All by myself”, precious moments, when we are alone on stage.
• I also learned, that in Riga they have a very specific mechanism to open the main doors to old blocks of flats which make you feel like in an escape room, BUT it’s an enter room!

IX 2019, DOLi FESTIVAL, WROCŁAW, POLAND

• DOLi was a unique festival for at least two reasons – accordiong to the slogan „DOLi connects the dots” it was gathering improvisers from different groups and different cities to play shows together and challenge themselves. Second thing was that two main days were at the Academy of Theatre Arts, which may lead to thinking, that theatre academies are starting to treat improvisation as a form of theatre, and not only „basic acting excersised for 1 year students”, as we could hear here and there. I would also add third thing, which would be the scripted show od sketches written and played by improvisers. (and it was funny!)
• During the festival I had the pleasure to perform No Exit show, with unity of time, space and action, so in short words a scene without cuts, and without leaving the room – so I got stuck with lovely Paweł Najgebauer, Artur Jóskowiak and Tomek Marcinko.
  The second show (it’s a good word) was The Small Game for Nothing, prepared and hosted by charismatic Maciek Buchwald, and it was SO SILLY, thank you.

VIII 2019, IMPROSALENTO FESTIVAL, GALLIPOLI, ITALY

• There is no festival which would a dream like this one. End of August. South coast of Italy. Long workshops, three teaching in a CASTLE, showcase in different places in the Old Town.
• Going to the beach during breaks. Eating Italian food for a week. Organizers who take care of you on every step and bring you lunch boxes in the workshop lunch break. Advanced improvisers in your workshop, who not only dived into the process of Free Form, but also perform in the end all the things we worked on and were great.
• First time performing in a show which was also a Soundpainting with a whole jazz band, was played by all Italian-speakers, and basically WAS in Italian, and guess what – I don’t speak Italian. But I made it! The boat party while watching sunset over sea. Omar being happy with his Soplica. Final dinner as a POOL PARTY (they are not only in films!!) 3 wonderful Italian teachers, Fabio, Fabrizio, Francesco, who sing you Italian songs in the apartament you share. Ok, one who sings Sailor Moon. Every day.

VIII 2019, ICC THEATRE, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

• For several days we were living in beautiful Copenhagen, riding bikes, playing shows in ICC Theatre, and preparing for the corporate workshop for I think 600, or 800 people with the whole team of teachers. We went on an island called Samso.
• There was mostly nothing, but a big music festival once a year. The idea was to teach outside, because everything was arranged in… tents, like in festivals, so imagine our facec when there was pouring rain a half an hour before the start. But it passed! Improvisers : Weather 1:0.
  And while talking to Rob from Canada, I gave him some Polish mountain cheese, and he gave me his book about improv. Fair trade!

VI 2019, MUZALIANS SHOW, ZIELONA GÓRA, POLAND

• Not a festival, just a great improv / dance / beatbox show of Muzalians in Zielona Góra in Poland, and some cute photos of us. And with Władek, who’s a dinasour of comedy in Poland, who I haven’t seen for ages!

IV 2019, POLISH IMPROV FESTIVAL „PODAJ WIOSŁO”, GDAŃSK, POLAND

• I performed with my old and my first improv group from times, when there was no improv in Poland – the group doesn’t exist for some years now, but we got together for this show.

III 2019, IMPRO BERLIN FESTIVAL, GERMANY:

• I love how much work you get in this festival. There is a one big cast put together from different countries, divided in different projects, and basically you perform every night for a week. When you’re working on a certain show, you have two days of rehearsals, and you perform it two nights in a row. The sad thing is, that every night the shows are at the same time, so when you’re performing, you can’t see others performing, but you know, life!
• I performed „Radioplay” twice, which could be watched, or just listened – we played four stories in a format of Supercene in different genres with a foley artist, who had a little mountain of gadgets to make sounds like in movies! The horror in quite Lovecraft style, and a story of a little, (not that) terrible girl will stay in my mind.
• I performed „Who’s there?” twice, which was a show starting with few pages of a scripted play that we received in envelopes after entering the stage, we got our characters, and then we improvised the rest of the play! Once we had a family drama, and the second time some dark, more surreal story between the worlds.
• I performed a short form night.
• I performed the After-show, and if you’re curious ask me what I did, when I asked the improviser from the audience, who was about to play with me „What is the character, that you always wanted to play, but never had a chance?, and he answered „nazi”!
• I taught a workshop which was a part of the BIF series, and a short look at my improv philosophy.

II 2019, IMPROFESTIVAL KARLSRUHE, GERMANY

• That was one of the rare exaples of a festival with no weak show! Each one of them was entertaining and presenting different styles of improv on a high level. Pay attention to Improfestival Karlsruhe!
• I performed in a pre-show „Armando” style.
• I performed the „Spirited Away” Miyazaki style duo with Gael Perry, and Ariane Jay on a violin, and it was beautiful. After the show Lee White came to me and said „You made me cry. It’s ok, I like a good cry.”
• I took a workshop and performed a „Soundpainting” show directed by Omar Galvan and it blew my mind! I’ve never played anything like it, the cast was happy like kids, and Omar is a genius.
• I performed in „Four Rooms” by Lee White and did strange things with a frog.
• I performed in „Centrepieces” by Kiki Hohnen.
• I taught a „Mindf*cks” workshop.
• I taught „Women who run with the Wolves” workshop.
• I taught „I’m with you” workshop.

XII 2018, IMPROVENTION FESTIVAL, CANBERRA (+ MELBOURNE, SYDNEY), AUSTRALIA

• OK, come on, let’s stop right here for a moment. Australia. Damn Australia. Adventure of our life. So here I’ll just list what I did improv-wise, and later I will write a proper post about this 3-week trip.
• During Improvention Festival in Canberra I taught „The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” workshop, and I was surprised that so many people came to unknown girl from Poland, and it was great!
• I performed in Meastro.
• I hosted Maestro.
• I directed the finals of Maestro with Andrew Hefler.
• I performed with 7 Women of Different Ages and Billy Kissa.
• I performed in „Livin la impro loca” show by Matias Avaca with games in different languages.
• I performed in „Passengers” by Jonathan Briden.
• I performed in „Random” by Flavien Reppert.
• I performed in „Improvision” song contest.
• I took a workshop of „Kung fu” improv by improvisers from Tai Pei.
• I took a workshop about doors by Laura Doorneweerd
• I took a workshop of teambuilding by Joe Bill
• Also at the last day in Australia I performed 7 Women show in Sydney.

X 2018, PODAJ PAGAJ IMPROV FESTIVAL, GDAŃSK, POLAND

• I performed two shows – first was my Abordaż duo with Wiolka Walaszczyk, „The Crowd work” where we literally played with the whole audience, divided in three sectors and it was wiiiiild, but everyone wanted this to succeed, and everyone was so wonderful! And Muzalians show, so our group mixing improv, dance and beatbox, and both shows were a blast.

photo: Przemysław Obarski

IX 2018, IMPROV CAMP, LIPUSZ, POLAND

• Oh, I’m pretty sure the photo by the lake is from this Camp. This time we worked on narrative skills, and formats like Monoscene and No Exit, when you just have to play a story without edits.

VI 2018, MT.OLYMPROV FESTIVAL, ATHENS, GREECE

• Big, big thing! You know already, that I love this festival, but this was special – we performed with 7 Women of Different Ages + beloved Billy Kissa for the first time at the international festival abroad! We were happy, but terrified, but it went better than we could imagine (if you wanna see it, the VIDEO IS HERE), and we received so much positive energy from people, that we were literally crying. Also, you wouldn’t expect Charna Halpern to tell you, that „you were the highlight of the festival”, and you wouldn’t expect to hear from Nick Byrne right after leaving the stage „I want to see you all perfoming in my festival in Australia”… Our universe exploaded, and keeps expanding ever since.
• One more thing about our show, which we heard later and we find beautiful was, that after our show, more women signed up for improv workshops in Athens, and some of them who left before, came back!
• I took workshops with Charna Halpern, totally worth it, and we had a long talk about dreams, magic and dogs while walking around Acropolis.
• It’s been in general very busy festival, and I performed in „No Exit” show with Lee White, Nick Byrne and Sebastien Nunez.
• I perfomed also in „Four Rooms” by Lee White, show based on the movie with the same title.
• Finally, I performed in the last show, „Cute” by Nick Byrne.
• Did I tell you already, how I love this festival?

IV 2018, POLISH IMPROV FESTIVAL „PODAJ WIOSŁO”, GDAŃSK, POLAND:

• At this festival I had a very nerdy task – I had a TED-style talk among three other speakers, about the improviser’s personality in their art, which I consider very important, to make general improv something more than „just improv”.
• I also did some small, veird things for festival’s social media, and, of course, spent some time with my improv friends, as you can see on the right.

IV 2018, IMPROFESTIVAL MAINZ, GERMANY

• Here again I taught what I love purely – long worshops about film and improv! Three days with really advanced improvisers were my pleasure with the „Improv goes to Hollywood”.
• I performed a trio show in an antique shop, where the audience was moving with us around the place, we were picking up objects, and playing their stories. After that show I was called a player type of „mischievous fairy”. I also played in a kind of Maestro show, and I did not win!

III 2018, OHANA MEETING, RAUENTHAL, GERMANY 

• Weekend full of working on improv with beautiful people from all around Europe!

I 2018, WIP WORKIMPROGRESS, PIOMBINO, ITALY

• That was something between improv festival, and huge improv camp. I taught 3-day workshop „Form Movies to Improv”, with a little showcase in the end (at I don’t know 1AM? 2 AM? And we weren’t even the last group! Italians don’t sleep!) I also performed a little Teachers’ show, and I had a translator in my workshop, because that’s obvious, that Italians want their workshops in Italian! Imagine me side-coaching scenes played in Italian. It worked.

photos: Wojtek Rojek

XI 2017, STATUS MAGAZINE INTERVIEW

• I still can’t believe it happened, but I had the BIG honor to be interviewed by Fena Ortalli for the „Status” Magazine, the only worldwide monthly magazine about improv! I was even on a cover, my goodness!! If you wanna know what I said in it, YOU CAN READ THE INTERVIEW HERE.

photo: Tomek Kamiński

X 2017, IGLU THEATRE, LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA

• I love them all, Vid, Jus and Peter in how different, yet brilliant they are as people, and as improvisers.
• We performed „Superscene”, where each of us set up and direct one scene, and after each round of scenes the audience was voting with clapping, which of them they want to see more. From Polish movie, to crazy sci-fi in space.
• I taught the „Selfdirecting” workshop for IGLU School’s students, I met other brilliant Slovenian improv friends like Sara and Mis, and we went on a trip to the nature wit Neza and Vid.

photos: Przemysław Obarski

IX 2017, SOFIA INTERNATIONAL IMPROV FESTIVAL, SOFIA, BULGARIA

• The start of my abroad Festival Teaching Adventure! I won’t forget, that Noah recommened me, and that Zlatin trusted me for the first time!
• I taught three workshops, „Selfdirecting” about using film director’s tools of working with actors in improv, „The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, again a film style of building characters in shades of grey, and „Wild at Heart”, so tools to use in free forms!
• I performed three Teachers shows with Jochem Meijer, Stefan Pagels Andersen and Noah Levin, we decided to play „Livingroom”, „Speed Harold”, and „Objects”, where we were doing transitions taking one object to another scene. Great support and fun with these Gentlemen.
• And Bebe and Agnieszka were there, perfoming in mixer shows!

VIII 2017, OHANA SUMMER WEEK, UKANC, SLOVENIA

• A whole week of working on different improv topics with our group of improvisers from all around Europe.
• We stayed in this beautiful place, on the edge of Slovenian national park.

photos: Przemysław Obarski

VII 2017, JO – INTERNATIONAL IMPROV FESTIVAL, TORUŃ, POLAND

• In this festival I prepared a „Lotus” mixer show, recommended by Randy in Seattle just a moment before.
• I also was a judge for the second time of a Polish adaptation of Theatre Sports.
• I performed also with my Ohana friends who were teaching at the festival, Jochem Meijer, Alan Pakosz and Flavien Reppert, a free form!

VI 2017,  MT.OLYMPROV FESTIVAL, ATHENS, GREECE

• I instantly fell in love with this festival, the vibe (Improvibe!), the organizers, the food, the weather. And we had a room with Bebe, Agnieszka, Kasia and Alicja with a tarrace where we could welcome the sun before going to sleep, and the Acropolis view from the other window, come oon!
• I took a workshop by Joe Bill (USA) for the first time, and enjoyed his philosophy a lot, I still quote that worshop. Joe is a big part of story of this festival, because also I took part in a mixer show that he set up (I’m saying set up, no to blame him for what happened on stage haha), and we were supposed to play scenes starting with the first suggestion, and then switch languages between native, and English, but of course play like you understand. Long story short, that’s my mixer trauma. Suggestion was „dog”, and EVERY scene was about that, and very fast it turned to DOGGY STYLE, and ended with DOGS LITERALLY FUCKING on stage, and I was trying to keep my face together, while looking at it from a side. . Here you can see my face when I spoke Polish and improviser responded „I don’t understand what you say DOG”.
• My second show removed the trauma, but I must admit I was a bit scared – by something else – invited cast was brilliant, and what if I fuck it up, and noone will ever invite me again? Who never had these thoughts, throw the stone first. Also the format was really unique and unpredictable – it was inspired by a video (vhs) game „The Nightmare”, and was based on a recording of some Dark Guy on a screen giving us stage tasks, but the point was, that the video couldn’t be paused, so you never knew when would he appear again and what will you have to do! Great adventure. And they invited me again, so I didn’t fuck it up!!
• As I said, Joe is appearing in different points of this festival, so we played in this together. But the last point happenes to be most important. After the mixer show I decided to never talk to him, because I was embarrased of what he had watch on stage. But during the party on a street I was waiting for someone and I was standing alone, and he stood next to me and I thought „Oh no, don’t talk to me”, but he opened his mouth and on this little Athens’ street a surprising friendship started, which makes me very, very happy!

photos: Wojtek Rojek

IV 2017, 7 WOMEN OF DIFFERENT AGES, GDAŃSK, POLAND

• Oh this is another pin on the map ot this journey. First show, when we played in this team, with Bebe and Agnieszka from here, and Alicja with Kasia accepted our invitation to come from Bydgoszcz and play this one show… and since then I stopped experimenting with inviting different women to play, and a project turned to the road of becoming a dedicated group, who didn’t know yet how important it would become for us. Look at us!

I 2017, IMPRO AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

• Here we performed with Sara, Laura, Alan, Timo and Alex the format that we put together and rehearsed durinh Ohana Summer Week. The show was called „Sidekicks” and was a super fun, yet challenging format inspired by the play „Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are dead” by Tom Stoppard and was exploring the concept of putting the epic action in the backround, and meaningless Sidekicks in the front. Loved it.

VIII 2016, OHANA SUMMER WEEK, UKANC, SLOVENIA

• Best. Week. Ever. I said everything in THIS BLOG POST.
  Besides that, that was my first time to rehearse with the international cast, in English, for the show at international festival!
  Also my first time to do Swimprov in a lake. I highly recommend.

photo: Wojtek Rojek

III 2016, MY FIRST OHANA MEETING, RAUENTHAL, GERMANY

• That was a turning point of my improv story, and a beginning of a new era, that’s why I start it here. As people recall, first my notebook entered the room, and then me, and it stayed like this, as I keep taking tons of notes..
• The funny part of that story was, that three days before going I realized, that just now my ID expired… and that I got so used to traveling with ID, that I did’t realize my passport expired a while ago. The lady in city hall said I have to wait a week od two for a new ID, so I went to the passport office, where a lady said she can’t make me a passport without an ID. I asked „I have to go to Germany in three days, there are controls lately, what am I supposed to do?” and the lady said „Who doesn’t risk, gets nothing.” And I said „Ok, you convinced me” – and I went with no valid documents, and that’s how happy I was, noone asked… and the rest is history!