The Bat is an audio-only improv format that explores how to create a dynamic soundscape that stimulates the senses and allows us to use that soundscape as source material for scenes.
We will learn how to incorporate elements of the soundscape as the connective tissue that frames those scenes, and we will explore the patterns and stories that develop.
The Bat was developed by Joe Bill with legendary improv team Georgia Pacific. Over the last 20 years, Joe has taught and directed The Bat all over the world.
This is a full-day intensive with a one hour lunch break.
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Joe Bill is widely regarded as one of the best teachers of Scenic, Longform, Duo
Improvisation, and Improvised Storytelling in North America today. He is one of the
founding members of Annoyance Theater Chicago where, for 12 years, he performed
in and/or directed more than 60 different shows. Joe is ½ of the first touring Improv Duo
in North America, BASSPROV, created in 2000 with Mark Sutton and still performed a
few times a year. Since then he’s been touring all over the world teaching, directing, and
improvising with several other amazing Duo Partners like Patti Stiles (Our Play), Jill
Bernard (SCRAM!), Stacey Hallal (Stacey & Joe, We Slept Together) Lee White
(Paradigm), Heather Urquart (Blues Hammer), Felipe Ortiz (Les Disciplinos) and
David Razowsky (Razowsky & Bill), ALL in different, original formats and styles. He's
touring and performing his solo scripted show, Joe Bill: Surviving Consciousness, all
over the world in 2024 and will be filming it in Auckland, NZ in May and releasing it
towards the end of the year. He is the creator and host of Story Chain, a virtual (and
now sometimes live!), 90-minute, international story sharing event that he developed in
2020 during the Pandemic. He was the Director of Corporate Training at iO Chicago
for 15 years and started training and performing there in 1985. He was a Guest Artist in
Residence at The Second City Training Center & Conservatory where he taught
intensives in Duo Improvisation and Improvisation for Actors for 10 years.
Joe has taught and performed on every continent on earth, except for Antarctica which
remains on his bucket list.
