Help us help others tell their stories . . .

Ability in Action

As we come to the end of the year, we seek your help to ensure we can continue to help those on the margins unlock their potential through creativity. Please support Bright Invention as we bring our improv-inspired theatre classes and workshops to extraordinary people!

Help us help others tell their stories . . . 

We all deserve creative expression . . . 

Bright Invention uses improvisation to help individuals and groups unlock their potential. We seek to center the voices society has placed on the margins.

Ability in Action is our program area which serves people with disabilities, and others seeking creative expression in challenging or difficult circumstances.

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“I love Acting Out! because we get to express ourselves through creativity and theatre. Everyone is so welcoming and inclusive. And we get treated the same way any other acting teacher would - we do not get special treatment because of our disabilities. I think everyone should support Bright Invention because they make our community richer.” Elias Rosen, Acting Out student 2014 - present.

CAROUSEL CONNECTIONS: OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH THIS WONDERFUL GROUP BRINGS OUR IMPROVISATION AND THEATRE CLASSES TO THEIR SUMMER CAMPERS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES AND AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER.

HOPE IN ACTION: OUR EIGHT-WEEK CLASS SUPPORTS TEENS RECOVERING FROM TRAUMA, FACILITATING THEIR CREATION OF ORIGINAL PIECES OF THEATER THROUGH STRUCTURED IMPROVISATION.

ACTING OUT! NOW IN ITS FIFTH YEAR, OUR SEMESTER-LONG CLASS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES ALWAYS FEATURES A SHOW TUNE WITH ORIGINAL CHOREOGRAPHY AND A SHORT THREE ACT ORIGINAL PLAY CREATED WITH STRUCTURED IMPROV.

Have a look at our extraordinary Acting Out! teachers Shea Sonsky and Kiersten Adams directing an Acting Out! rehearsal November 17th, 2019:

Our work leads to:

• emotional intelligence

• self confidence

• collaborative skills

Your donation will support:

• our skilled teaching artists

• equitable access across income levels

• program growth through low-cost partnerships

We hope you'll give a meaningful donation to support us as we continue to bring joy, and creative expression those who need it most!

Thank you!

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Summer Updates!

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BENJAMIN LLOYD

It’s our first summer without our summer camp, and while we miss our kids don’t think for a minute that we are taking a break! Check out some of the cool stuff we’re working on this summer!

Ensemble

We had our best, and best-attended Improvasushi show last Saturday June 3rd. We even had to add chairs to our audience seating in the Tokio Ballroom! Don't miss our next show Saturday July 13th!

We are proud and excited to announce that we applied and were accepted to two improv festivals!

• The Baltimore Improv Festival. Saturday August 3rd, time TBA. Cast: Kaitlin Chin, Kiersten Adams, Eric Walker, Aimee Goldstein, Benjamin Lloyd, Carlo Campbell, Josh Kirwin.

• The Steel City Improv Festival, September 19 - 21. Cast, time and date of show TBA

THE BRIGHT INVENTION ENSEMBLE.

In development are two cool partnerships, both involving Dinner with Friends - our shared meal followed by a show:

• For Project HOME, we envision Dinner with Friends for a blended audience at a Project Home site.

• For co-working spaces 1776 and WeWork, we imagine the show as a fundraiser for a local nonprofit with discounted tickets for co-working members.

Stand by as Dinner with Friends takes shape!

Creative Corporate Training

ENSEMBLE MEMBERS CARLO CAMPBELL AND KAITLIN CHIN PERFORMING AT A RECENT CCT WORKSHOP.

Speaking of WeWork, we are bringing our CCT demo to the WeWork space in Northern Liberties, Tuesday June 18th, 10:30 AM - Noon. This is part of a growing partnership with Throw Like A Woman Consulting. Learn more about this demo by clicking here!

We continue our work with West Philadelphia Skills Initiative, and Cooperstein Hospitality. Coming next fall, workshops for The Lebow School of Business at Drexel and Community Associations Institute of New Jersey.

If you know of anyone who might be interested in our improv-inspired, scenario-based workshops, please refer us! We are happy to bring our demo to your site! Here is the CCT website.

Education

We have three classes in the works this summer!

TWO CAROUSEL CONNECTIONS STUDENTS STUDYING IMPROV WITH US LAST SUMMER.

• We kicked off our Summer Improv Jam last Thursday at Cheltenham Center for the Arts. We have 10 wonderful adult students learning from me and ensemble member Shea Sonsky!

• On June 26th I will begin teaching an improv class for adults with disabilties at Carousel Connections. This is a continuation of work begun last summer.

• Also on the 26th, ensemble member Kiersten Adams and I will co-teach at The Village: Hope in Action of Children and Families. This is a new initiative and we are excited to learn more about this extraordinary community!

Shakespeare in the Summer

Our annual co-production with Pulley & Buttonhole Theatre Company is off and running. This year, we tackle our first non-comedy, Macbeth! Working on this production are ensemble members Shea Sonsky, Eric Walker, Benjamin Lloyd and Josh Kirwin.

Don’t miss this fun outdoor production at Abington Art Center, August 5, 6, 7 and 8th at 7 pm! Pay what you can! Show webpage coming soon . . .

PRODUCTION STILL OF LAST SUMMER’S TWELFTH NIGHT FEATURING ENSEMBLE MEMBER KAITLIN CHIN.

Creative Corporate Training demo Monday May 20th 12 noon!

Monday May 20th, 12 noon

Free demonstration

BENJAMIN LLOYD FACILITATES WITH THREE BRIGHT INVENTION PERFORMANCE ASSISTANTS FOR A RECENT CCT WORKSHOP

Bright Invention's Creative Corporate Training program employs an innovative, scenario-based approach to team-building, customer service and workplace culture enhancement. We use structured improvisations we design specifically for each client, which embody issues or themes the client wants their team to examine. 

Unlike other improv-based training programs, we do not make you role play! We do the acting - you do the problem solving.

Monday May 20th 

Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia
Conference Center, Engagement Room, 
200 S. Broad St, Suite 700, Philadelphia, PA 19102

• Note new time: Social time 11:30 am - 12 noon

• Demo 12 noon - 12:45 PM

• Free - refreshments served

• Bring friends!

Please RSVP

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Bright Invention PO Box 8870 Elkins Park, PA 19027
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New ensemble photos by Sarah Bloom Photography!

We invited professional photographer Sarah Bloom into our rehearsal recently and she took some pix! Check out the gallery below. Next show is STAR WARS DAY! May the Fourth be with you - the force is strong in this Improvasushi!

The Commedia Connection.

Recently, in preparing our show we are calling Improvasushi!, I began to understand that what I am interested in doing is a 21st century version of the Renaissance Italian theater known as commedia dell’arte. And the more I explored this connection, the more excited I became. I studied commedia for two extraordinary weeks in 2006 with the acknowledged master of the form, Antonio Fava. I was entranced, not only by Fava’s energetic and elaborate teaching style, but by the boldness and creativity of commedia itself. You can read about this experience more fully in my personal blog here. For Fava, commedia the performance style cannot be understood without understanding commedia the economic entity. “Commedia dell arte means ‘professional theatre!’” Fava would bellow. And he explained that these companies (and they called themselves companies) were the first western example of professional actors.

A COMMEDIA COMPANY ARRIVES

I left that experience regarding the commedia actor as heroic: perfecting the performance of stock characters within unscripted plots - the shows were enormous structured improvisations - and at the same time, being occasionally persecuted by prelates and nobility, suspicious of these actors with bawdy senses of humor, and smarting from the satire they put on display. The shows, Fava explained, were not only un-scripted, they were calibrated and adapted to the specific audiences they were being performed for. They were breathtakingly immediate and personal to the people watching on that day (always in the day of course - no electricity.) I found myself moved and inspired.

Our ensemble Bright Invention practices and performs long form improvisation. What’s that, you ask? Well, good luck finding a succinct definition, and if you do please let me know. Here’s a short Medium article about long form improv which also has some useful links. And here’s my little snapshot:

A COMMEDIA COMPANY ARRIVES

With this post I launch “Letters from Ben”, the replacement for the monthly newsletter we used to generate. At the beginning of each month I will post a rumination of sorts about the work Bright Invention is doing some area. My goal is to create a personal connection to you through writing. I hope you like it. Feel free to comment and ask questions!

***
As some of you know, Bright Invention is an extension of a strange collision of concerns of mine. On the one hand, a concern for the extraordinary genius of the actor; how we are descended from a lineage of celebrities, vagabonds, eccentrics and seers beginning with tribal shamen, who were healers as well as performers. On the other hand, an interest in the economic pressures on the modern American performing artist; how commercial forces dehumanize this most human of all artists, turning us into things which are bought and sold, and capitalizing on our ambition and vulnerability for profit.

ANTONIO FAVA

Short form improv is what most people think of when you say “improv”: short, absurd and silly scenes and sketches based on audience suggestions.

• If short form uses clever ideas to generate laughs, long form explores deep relationships to reveal shared humanity. Long form is based in realism, short form is not.

• Long form is often funny, but it doesn’t have to be. Once improvisation is freed from the requirement to be funny, entire galaxies of experience open up.

• Long form is “long” because the relationships between characters developed in shows continue through the entire show. This is seldom the case in short form.

• Short form is often a means to an end, the end being scripted sketch comedy based on improv. Long form is the end itself.

But our ensemble is also dedicated to “expanding the genre” and it is in this vein that we will begin to merge our work with some of the traditions and approaches of the commedia companies. We will begin to include rehearsed performance in our improvised long form shows. As with the commedia companies our shows will begin and end with rehearsed music and song. And we will soon begin to develop lazzi - rehearsed, solo set pieces sometimes comic, sometimes not, performed by individual members of the ensemble, and inserted into our shows. What these little solos are, and how they appear in our shows remains to be seen. But what I am sure of is that they will showcase the remarkable range of talent in our ensemble, from music and singing, to spoken word poetry, to dance and circus performance, to clown and physical comedy.

OME OF US, EXHAUSTED, AFTER THE IMPROVATHON!

What we won’t borrow from commedia are the masks and precisely organized performances of stock characters. But we do strive to have the same sense of immediate and personal audience connection that commedia companies thrived on. And, as with these extraordinary Renaissance ensembles, we are determined to explore new paradigms to support the economic needs of the modern American actor through our corporate training work.

Stay tuned!