Starting this July, Sundays will be TIC Community Day at Theory Bar – we need your help hosting and producing exciting jams and events
Hey TIC fam!
We’re cooking up something special, and we want you to be a part of it.
In our pre-Covid era, Sundays were always Community Day at The Improv Conspiracy Theatre. We lost a bit of our Sunday mojo as we rebuilt from lockdown after lockdown, but with community vibes at a new high, it’s time we got our groove back!
Starting this July, every Sunday is going to be Community Day at Theory Bar – anchored by a brand-new Sunday jam series, with up to TWO afternoon jam events happening each and every week.
Making this change won’t be easy, so we’ll need your help – to attend these new events, but also to brainstorm, produce and facilitate them!
Our goal is for Sundays to become a full-on community day, centred around daytime jams, but with room to grow into something even bigger — think pre-jam bar events like board game sessions and paint-and-sips, and post-jam performances from booked community acts! (more on those later)
We’re looking for passionate community members to step up and help lead these jams. Many hands will make for light work, and we’d like to get as many people involved as possible – with training and support provided by the theatre.
We want these Sunday community events to be as inclusive and varied as possible. There’s space for:
Traditional open-access jams (e.g. continuing the Red Hot Improv Jam tradition)
We want heaps of these as they’re our bread and butter – either run by a core team that presents itself to us, or by us putting some great people together
Jams that put the spotlight on specific community demographics (e.g. Space Jam for women & non-binary performers, queer jams, BIPOC jams, etc.)
“Bring Your Own Team” (BYOT) style shows where you participate with your pre-arranged team instead of as an individual
Open mics (whether for stand-up comedy, or other art forms like music, poetry and storytelling)
“Bring A Friend / TIC Open Day” jam where you can rope a non-TIC mate in to jam with you
Jams with scenework constraints like Musical Jams, Dramatic Scene Jams, etc.
The sky is the limit, and we want to give our community the freedom to be bold and creative. Each Sunday will feature up to two sessions, so we’re keen to pair two different event types or have one producer run a longer, two-part experience.
If you’re someone who loves our community and wants to help it grow — whether you’ve been here for years or are just getting started — we’d love to have you involved.
It’s not about how experienced you are as an improviser, it’s about your willingness to give back to the community. We’ll need folks with big warm energies to host the events, and folks with planning and people-wrangling skills to produce them.
Each week will feature up to two different events, scheduled as follows:
Sunday at 3:30pm – Event A
Sunday at 4:45pm – Event B
We’ll be running the events on an 8-week rotation to match our workshop term schedule, so the minimum level of involvement would be producing an event once every two months.
The schedule may be altered due to seasonal events such as Defrost Festival, Melbourne International Comedy Festival, etc.
Theory Bar has two spaces – the large front bar and the smaller screening room.
Our goal is to always hold our events in the room that makes the most sense based on the number of attendees.
If these events are well-attended with over 20 participants, we would be thrilled to hold them in the large front bar, otherwise we’d host them in the screening room where it’s a bit more intimate.
While we’re getting up and running, we’ll have venue staff check the number of prebookings upon arrival, and set up the appropriate room. If you prefer jamming in the larger space, please book early and often!
The only exception may be our Week 7-8 Student Showcase Sundays during which the front bar is typically filled with folks bringing friends and family in to celebrate their end-of-term showcase. On these dates, events may need to stick to the screening room.
$25 cash and a Theory Bar drink card per jam you run
The chance to shape the programming and make the jams your own.
Training and support provided — even if you’ve never hosted or produced a jam before, we’ve got your back
A chance to grow our community in fun, inclusive, and creative ways
Thursday jams at the theatre will be discontinued from the end of June, and the first event of the day will be the 7pm Harold Night session.
We wish to be very clear with our messaging of “Sunday = Community Day”, and also to accommodate the large numbers of Rep City students who will be taking Thursday night classes at the Annex, who’d otherwise be locked out of jam opportunities.
We’d like to sincerely thank the current producers of the Red Hot Improv Jam (Sav Dias) and Space Jam (Alanah Parkin) – along with all other producers who’ve had a hand in Thursday jamming during our post-Covid recovery.
We’d love to keep you involved in whatever capacity suits you, should your schedule allow for the change of date.
Already have an idea in the tank, or want to discuss an inkling of an idea? Shoot us a message via contact@improvconspiracy.com and we’ll get in touch.
Simply jam-curious at the moment? Please join us for a casual info session about what makes a great jam experience on Sunday June 29 at 3pm in the Theory Bar screening room.
Let’s build something awesome — together.
Love,
The Improv Conspiracy Theatre Team
Enjoy some good times downstairs at Theory Bar
Fancy a beverage after your next show or class session? Our ground floor bar is open Wednesday–Sunday.
Community members and ticket-holders get access to our fantastic Happy Hour menu all night long
Please note: drinks can not be transferred between venues in the building
