r/improv • u/Careful_Leader_5829 Longform • Apr 02 '26
Discussion If you had a "ick, I'm never going back there" experience with an improv theater/training center, but there was not other improv theater in your city, what did you do?
I'm at a crossroads. I have a friend who wants to start a new theater and wants me to help, which is very cool! But after going through some traumatizing events (yes, related to my original theater, sadly), I'm wondering if it would be better if I moved away from my city and did improv somewhere else for a while. (Or maybe even look to move to greener pastures for my life in general, but you now what they say about greener grass...)
Been through anything like this? What did you do?
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u/mdervin Apr 02 '26
It depends on the nature of the traumatizing experience & what did you learn from it. It's one thing if it was a simple clash of personalities, or running across a toxic person, but it's another thing if it was basic group dynamics or the day to day running of a theater.
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u/johnnyslick Seattle Apr 02 '26
Part of the issue there is that even if it's "just" a toxic person, if the theater sides with the toxicity over you, what do you do outside of sitting out and waiting for the trash to take itself out? The way a theater deals with rotten apples is part of what makes a theater good or poor to work with. I definitely saw otherwise "good" venues in Chicago (thinking of the Charna-run iO in particular) do just especially poorly with this (which I guess TBF the first person I can think of who was "toxic" there was a really good if harsh coach for me) and the end result was that they kind of weren't good. And unlike OP's situation, in Chicago there are other choices.
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u/mdervin Apr 02 '26
In OP's stated case, they'll be one of the decision makers, so if the theater is toxic, it's on them.
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u/johnnyslick Seattle Apr 02 '26
Well, no, not exactly: it sounds to me like OP is thinking about starting a venue of their own in response to the potential toxicity of the original place. I didn't get the sense that they were involved in the original theater at all but maybe I missed something.
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u/bryanfernando vs. Music Apr 02 '26
I went to another theater in another city, got a good video, used that video to submit to festivals, used my festival appearances to get invited to perform in other places, eventually came back to mild praise and fanfare
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u/returnofdoom Apr 02 '26
I think improv would have to be a pretty huge part of my life before I would consider moving for it. Is that the case with you? Have you discussed the issue with the theater’s management? Do you feel like it would be impossible to move on from the traumatic experience in your current city as an improviser?
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u/DowntownYorickBrown Apr 02 '26
Yeah this post makes me feel like I’m from another planet. Moving cities to get a fresh start in the improv community. Unless it was paying the bills I would never even consider such a thing.
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u/Careful_Leader_5829 Longform Apr 02 '26
Yes -- this theater and people there take up a lot of space in my personal life. Lots of mutual relationships that were frayed, toxicity that entered my personal life that impacted friends and family outside of that theater. Boundaries crossed in online interactions also. The last few years have been an absolutely nightmare for me. And I'd like to get away from it.
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u/Careful_Leader_5829 Longform Apr 03 '26
I've done a lot of creative things over the years, but improv was the thing I was the most 'successful' at.
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u/practical_cats Apr 02 '26
I know this is the inverse of what you asked and at the risk of totally doxing myself, I had that experience in Chicago last summer (sexual violence and management found my formal complaint credible but refused to ban my assailant so I'm not physically safe to return there). Even though there're other theaters it's still tough because the community is small (different theaters aren't wholly different entities/communities) and I've lost a lot of opportunities and some people I thought were friends. I also know that if I moved cities (which I wouldn't because my home is more important to me than improv), there would still be people with connections to the theater that is actively dangerous to me. That might not be the case in your situation and you might actually have a better shot at a truly clean slate with a move than someone coming from a city with many opportunities might.
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u/Careful_Leader_5829 Longform Apr 02 '26
Thanks for sharing. Yeah, those who haven't been through it themselves don't really understand how overwhelming and distressing it can be.
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u/johnnyslick Seattle Apr 02 '26
Yeah, that's a shitty situation and I'm sorry you're going through it. Unfortunately if it really is the only game in town then you might not have a lot of choice except to move (which, I agree, is a huuuuuuge thing to do, although people do move to and then away from Chicago all the time so you'd be far from the only transplant or short-timer in the community) or form your own thing. If the lone venue is toxic then building your own community might be the best/only long-term alternative for the city... and even there, you might find that you really, really benefit from spending some time in a larger improv community and getting lots of ideas as to how to do the craft so that when you do return it's not just "I want to do improv but less toxic" but also "I've come to learn that I like improv best that does X and Y and so I'm going to do a school that follows that".
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u/nevergofullcrazy Apr 02 '26
This happened to me almost exactly. After everything went down, I started travelling for improv but I'm ultimately planning to move to Chicago.
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u/aSingleHelix Apr 02 '26
I might talk to theater leadership or if it was an experience with leadership, the board or the press about it and try and and get the source of the ick excised.
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u/teabearz1 Apr 06 '26
I had a really awful experience that resulted in ptsd. There are some theatres I’ll never not have a physical reaction to. I refuse to go into those ones. It’s not worth fighting through anything. But a clean reset could be triggering if you see old dynamics that no one has acknowledged - improv theatres blow up all the time.
I took time off (it corresponded with covid for me) and I desperately needed it. And I’ve take it slow and joined indie things here and there and I will say staying local means fighting through that trauma. So I don’t know. There’s a certain victory in that, but pain without the clean slate. I will say improv generations do turn over pretty fast so lots of people in the scene now have no idea who I am and that feels great.
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u/Careful_Leader_5829 Longform Apr 06 '26
I'm sorry you went through something similar. Our city really needs a second theater run by people who aren't narcissists, alcoholics and prima donnas.
It's impossible to get support with PTSD when people don't want to "get involved" because they want to protect their status at that theater. Such a bummer.
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u/teabearz1 Apr 06 '26
Yupppp, I think for me there were layers of retraumatization each time one of my friends tacitly supported their behavior by attending the theatre that was like explicitly supporting my abuser. It took really having absolutely no room for anything that made me feel like shit that really turned the corner in healing. I coach now (only indie currently) and I try to spread the message far and wide that you really aren’t safe in these places unless they are explicitly holding their performers to a code of conduct.
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u/Putrid_Cockroach5162 Apr 02 '26
Where'd you get the ick, so I know where not to waste my time and energy?
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u/VonOverkill Under a fridge Apr 02 '26
Moving away from a town to escape an abuser or a toxic community is totally justified. Hell, I even support moving to a bigger city just to stick it to that one, specific asshole that thinks he's the king of the midwestern improv trash pile. He'll hate it when you send him selfies from the front row of a Ben Schwartz show; they say the best revenge is to live well.
That said, know that people are kind of the same, everywhere. Theater staff will always make baffling decisions, and you'll never feel as seen as you'd hoped. I'm concerned this might be a very straight-white-millenial-guy thing to say, but here it is anyway: stability in an improv community doesn't come from towns or theaters, it comes from you building a bubble of reliable, like-minded peers around yourself. I think a lot of people don't realize that, until they move away & have to start from scratch.
But like I said, it's totally justifiable to move away to escape that constant, penetrating screeching noise made by abusers in positions of power, or powerless abusers in flocks.