In June, we invited all 2025 festival performers to vote for the workshops they wanted us to program at this year’s Countdown Improv Festival. Below are this year’s top choices. For more on our methodology, click here.
All workshops will last approximately two hours each, will take place at either the HCC Ybor Performing Arts Building or The Commodore, and will be capped at 16 students per workshop. On the low end, we’ll need a minimum of 6 people in order for a workshop to run. (Both of these numbers are flexible depending on instructor preference.) All workshops will cost $30 each until mid-July, at which point the prices will rise to $35 each. We gotta cover our costs here, people!
Thurs, August 7
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Fri, August 8
10:00 am-12:00 pm
12:30-2:30 p.m.
12:00-2:30 pm: Improv summit at The Commodore, 811 E. 7th Ave.
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Sat, August 9
10:00 am-12:00 p.m.
12:00-2:30 pm: Improv summit at The Commodore, 811 E. 7th Ave.
12:30-2:30 p.m.
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Sunday, August 10
10:00 am-12:00 pm
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
After The Bomb Drops: How To Lean Into Difficult Conversations In Improv Scenes
Stephanie Bell
Thursday, August 7, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
HCC Rehearsal Hall
Too many times a performer shares a vulnerable truth about their character and their scene partner writes it off as a joke. This improv workshop helps students make memorable scenes by digging deeper into difficult and uncomfortable conversations in their improv scenes.
About the instructor
Stephanie Bell is a clown and improv instructor in Dallas, Texas. She believes that vulnerability and authenticity is the foundation of performance. She loves bringing her clown work into her improv. When she’s not teaching and performing, she’s hanging out with her cats.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Feel It To Believe It: Emotion as the Magic Ingredient
Diana Brown
Friday, August 7, 12:30-2:30 p.m.
HCC Rehearsal Hall
In this emotionally rich, playfully deep workshop, we’ll explore how authentic feeling transforms improv from clever to captivating. Emotion isn’t just a tool—it’s the magic ingredient that gives your characters depth, your relationships weight, and your comedy heart. Through focused exercises and dynamic scene work, you’ll learn to tap into your emotional truth, respond instinctively, and leave a lasting impression on stage.
About the instructor
Diana Brown is an improv artist, teaching artist, actor, producer, director and voiceover talent. She was voted Most Valuable Mentor and Teacher at the San Francisco Improv Festival. Diana was named as one of The Improv Boosts 2025 Sudden Impact Teachers. She leads the improv program at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s School of Theatre. Diana is an instructor, producer and a member of the leadership team with Leela Improv Theatre in San Francisco. She presents the improvised Shakespeare program at All Out Comedy Theatre, is a guest teacher with BATS (Bay Area Theatre Sports) and teaches with Greater Than The Sum.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Theatre from the Heart: An Introduction to Playback Theatre
Jill Eickmann
Saturday, August 9, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
HCC Studio Theatre
Playback Theatre is a unique form of improvisational theatre in which audience members volunteer stories from their lives and see them played back on the spot. Performance artists utilize a range of theatrical techniques, movement, dialogue, and music to bring the shared stories to life. This dynamic, and participatory approach not only entertains but also fosters empathy, connection, and reflection, creating a collaborative and often transformative experience for both performers and audience members alike. In this interactive workshop, students will receive an introduction to playback theatre methodology and experience the beauty of using true stories as the base for improv. By exploring various playback formats and structures, actors will practice valuable skills and approaches to expand their improv artist’s tool bag.
About the instructor
Jill Eickmann is Leela Improv’s Co-founder and Artistic Director. Established in 2003 in San Francisco, Leela is a holistic improv training center and theatre company, now on two coasts (San Francisco and Raleigh.) She designed Leela’s seven-level curriculum focusing on Leela’s powerful mission of truthful, artistic play. Jill holds an MA in Drama Therapy from California Institute of Integral Studies where she studied playback theatre with Playback Theatre director and internationally recognized drama therapist, Armand Volkas. She holds a BFA in Theatre-Acting from University of Florida and is a licensed marriage and family therapist, drama therapist and play therapist. As a performance artist, she regularly performs with San Francisco based playback theatre actor/director, Roni Alperin in their playback theatre duo, and in an improvised therapy format, “In Session” for the treatment of your favorite fictional character. She also performs in Raleigh with Barbara Kaynan and Noa Roth in Triangle Playback Theatre. “The Friendship Show” a solo self-revelatory theatre performance, is Jill’s mission to heal adult loneliness through theatrical improvisation. This will be Jill’s 3rd year at Countdown!
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
How to Make Money Doing Teambuilding Workshops
Anthony Francis
Friday, August 8, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
The Commodore
Learn how to price, sell, close, and facilitate teambuilding workshops for companies big and small, as well as a simple session outline to get you started.
About the instructor
Anthony Francis has over a decade’s worth of experience performing, producing and teaching improv, as well as selling and facilitating teambuilding workshops to companies.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Curious & In Control: Working (With) the Crowd
Diane Jorge
Friday, August 8, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
HCC Studio Theatre
Mastering Hosting, Interviews, & Crowdwork in Improv
Great crowdwork doesn’t mean chaos. It means curiosity—with direction. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to interact with audience members and real people on purpose. Not only will you learn how to be the host with the most, you’ll also learn how to turn everyday answers into scenes that sing, without losing your comedic edge or control of the show.
You’ll practice:
- Holding the spotlight confidently as a host and/or interviewer without clinging to it
- Reading the room and building trust with your audience
- Asking better, bolder questions that unlock real stories
- Responding with play, not panic—even to hecklers or wild cards
- Transitioning from conversation into character or scene
Whether you’re hosting, performing solo, or just tired of awkward audience banter, this workshop will help you stay grounded, generous, and joyfully in charge.
About the instructor
Diane Jorge is a Miami-born comedian, actor, and improviser with over 16 years of experience performing, teaching, and creating original comedy. She is the creator and star of Solovela: An Improvised Solo Telenovela, winner of the 2025 Orlando Fringe Critics’ Choice Award for Best Solo Show – Improv. The show transforms audience stories into a fast-paced, character-filled telenovela, fully improvised and never the same twice. In addition to Solovela, Diane incorporates her improv training with her character Mercado de la Fortuna, headlining shows in South Florida while she gives fortunes con mucho, mucho humor. She also performs regularly with ensembles across Florida including Just the Funny and ImprovU, bringing her signature emotional range and bold character work to group formats as well. As a teacher, she encourages her students to make bold choices with different workshops ranging from characters to crowd work. Whether she’s improvising solo, teaching a room full of students, or cracking up crowds with stand-up and storytelling, Diane brings humor, humanity, and a fearless sense of fun to everything she does.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Kickstarting Scenes: Premise-Based Initiations
Victoria Koenitzer
Friday, August 8, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
HCC Rehearsal Hall
Have you ever started scenes wondering who you are and what is going on? Let’s start scenes with a clear first line that contains a reality and a funny idea. Learn to pull ideas effectively from monologues, living room openings, and more in order to get on the same page at the beginning of the scene so that you can have fun playing with and exploring the funny thing for the rest of the scene. Let’s learn to start with a clear idea and empower ourselves from the second we step off the backline.
About the instructor
Victoria Koenitzer is an improviser and instructor in San Diego who teaches at Finest City Improv, Mockingbird Improv, and an organization she founded: Divergent Improv. She coaches several indie teams and has also taught at Cornerstone Improv and at multiple festivals around the country, including at the Baltimore Improv Festival and Northwest Improv Festival. She has performed at over a dozen improv festivals nationally and internationally. Victoria is a graduate of Upright Citizens Brigade and Finest City Improv, and has taken extensive classes at Worlds Greatest Improv School, the Pack Theater, and Second City, among others.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Echoes of Imagination: Using Figurative Language to Shape Melodies
Ralph Krumins
Sunday, August 10, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
The Commodore
This workshop blends the art of musical improvisation with the power of metaphor, similes, and symbolism. In this creative and hands-on session, you’ll explore how figurative language can elevate your lyrics, adding depth, resonance, and emotional impact to your music.You’ll learn to transform abstract ideas into vivid imagery through guided exercises and collaborative improvisation, turning ordinary lyrics into poetic and unforgettable moments. Whether you’re a seasoned songwriter or a budding artist, this workshop will empower you to infuse your music with powerful metaphors and symbols that speak to the heart.
About the instructor
With over two decades of improvisational mastery, Ralph Krumins as Ivories Guy delivers an emotionally charged solo performance that leaves audiences spellbound. Through intimate, spontaneous conversations with the crowd, Ralph channels each character’s dreams, joys, and fears into heartfelt, original songs.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Welcome to the Dollhouse with T.J. Mannix
T.J. Mannix
Saturday, August 9, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
HCC Studio Theatre
The Dollhouse is an epic musical improv form that also blows up the traditional mono-scene. Grounded is strong relationships, the entire show is set in and around one location, with every improvised character existing under one crowded roof.
T.J.’s musical workshop uses the Dollhouse form to focus on honest relationships and physicality – while also exploring how to build powerful, theatrical, opening numbers that wow the audience.
Inspired by the epic, all-female, NYC musical improv team “The Jezebelles,” The Dollhouse was made popular during their multi-year run at the Magnet Theater in NYC.
As the Founder and Producer of the New York Musical Improv Festival, T.J. Mannix has spent the last decade working with and showcasing innovative musical performers from around the globe.
***NOTE – if you are new to Musical Improv and worried that your singing voice won’t get you cast in WICKED anytime soon, don’t worry. Anyone can play in the Dollhouse, and talk-singing is a Hollywood tradition that goes back a century.
About the instructor
A 28-year veteran of the NYC improv scene, T.J. Mannix has performed and taught in 23 countries, leaving his mark on stages around the world. From Broadway to television to international improv festivals, T.J. Mannix continues to bring his unique brand of live comedy to audiences everywhere. Original cast member of the critically acclaimed BLANK the Musical (Off-Broadway). Toured multiple times with The Second City/NCL. Founder & Artistic Director of the New York Musical Improv Festival (12 years and counting!). Faculty at Circle in the Square on Broadway & BFA Acting for Film and BFA Musical Theater programs at NYFA-NYC. With his one-man improvised musical LimboLand, T.J. has headlined from Paris to Pittsburgh, Oslo to Oklahoma City, and Vancouver to Virginia.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Mystery Workshop
Mystery Instructor
Saturday, August 9, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
HCC Rehearsal Hall
What is this workshop about? Who is the instructor? The only way to find out is to sign up!
About the instructor
?
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Scene Work the Chicago Way
Jonathan Pitts
Saturday, August 9, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
HCC Rehearsal Hall
Chicago is famous for grounded, honest, relationship-based improvisation scene work that produces deep laughs and deep sighs as the audience is moved to both. This style of work requires acting, listening, openness, patience, and responding through a shared process of give and take. This workshop will feature a deep dive into this process of two-person scene work that will bring improvisers discovery upon discovery. As those shared discoveries pile up, the improvised scene becomes deep, full and funny. It’s the Chicago way.
About the instructor
Jonathan Pitts is an award-winning international improviser who has taught and/or performed improv in 28 countries, 100+ cities, and 34 improv festivals. He’s the co-founder of the Chicago Improv Festival, which he produced for 20 years. He’s listed as #24 in Matt Fotis’ 2024 book, “50 Key Improv Performers”. He taught at The Second City for 16 years. His website is www.JonathanPittsImprov.com.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Balle Balle Bollywood! Bring Some Color into Your Improv!
Radhika Rao
Saturday, August 9, 12:30-2:30 p.m.
HCC Rehearsal Hall
Bollywood Cinema masters the art of high-stakes storytelling. Did you know that until recently, huge percentages of Bollywood script were largely improvised on the set? Learn from their playbook:
- Elevate the stakes: Every scene demands maximum drama.
- Bold character choices: Push your characters to the extreme.
- Embrace the theatrical: Unapologetically inject music, dance, and over-the-top emotions into your scene.
- Embrace confidence: Perform with over the top- boldness and conviction.
This approach will add a vibrant, unexpected energy to your improv practice. Use authentic storylines from cultures or family narratives you were raised in.
Radhika brings over 10 years of teaching improv, and embracing different cultural perspectives to performing improv. Please note- This workshop will involve movement, music, and a call to heightened emotions- no dance/music/over-emotionality experience required!
About the instructor
Radhika Rao is an undying fan of the Countdown Improv Festival. She is a bilingual actor, improv artist, and theater arts/improv/communications coach based in San Francisco, California. Radhika is equally at home in the hyper scripted world of Shakespeare as she is the unscripted world of improv or contemporary theater. She is a cast member in the Improv Duo “Gamesome Frolic” and Bollywood Inspired Troupe- “Kuch Kuch Bollywood.” She performs her solo show “Not Therapy” regularly- a show that brings audience and performers together in healing outside therapy rooms, through stories, games and laughter.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to this year’s festival workshops.
Freestyle Rap Games for Anyone!
Dylan Oakes Rohde
Friday, August 8, 12:30-2:30 p.m.
HCC Studio Theatre
Whether you already freestyle or don’t even really listen to rap, learn everything you need to know so you can sound good coming up with 2 bars at a time that are on beat and rhyme, and get laughs. Beginning with the basics of counting beats (and even when to clap,) and by the end we’ll play a number of games that will make you feel like a star and something you can practice on your free time or even take home to perform in your own shows.
About the instructor
Founder of The Backline Comedy Theatre and Omaha Comedy Fest, Dylan Oakes Rohde started doing improv in 2007 at UCB and iO West in L.A. Also a life-long fan of hip-hop, Dylan started rapping at karaoke a decade ago, then competing with it. He started the freestyle rap group Zip-Zopera: The Improvised Hip-Hopera and eventually the freestyle duo Once Upon a Rhyme with teammate Rodney Conyers, Jr. After realizing Wild N’ Out was just the Whose Line Is It Anyways of freestyle rap games, he created the show Gett’n Rowdy off that same premise and now teaches folks how to freestyle rap for the purpose of playing games.
Return to Top
Click here to buy tickets to year’s festival workshops.
History and methodology
From 2018 through 2020, festival workshops were programmed on an ad hoc basis, with the festival organizers choosing the instructors, and, in some cases, the workshop topics. We did it this way for a few reasons — for one thing, it felt like the easiest way to curate a diverse, high-quality workshop roster each year — but we were always aware that this process was neither particularly transparent nor egalitarian. In 2021, we decided try to fix this problem by putting the workshop-programming process in the hands of our performers.
In 2022, we refined the process to make performer voting the primary, but not the sole, determinant of that year’s workshop roster. We opened voting for a nine-day span and allowed all performers to vote once. The key difference between 2021 and 2022 was that the two executive producers of the festival also voted — but each of their votes was worth 4 performer votes. In the end, this meant that the producers’ votes accounted for roughly 20 percent of the total votes received.
To determine 2025’s workshop roster, we ran a variety of scenarios to identify the clear winners. First, we looked at the total number of votes received. Then, we looked at the total number of points received, where a first-choice workshop vote will receive 6 points, a second-choice vote will receive 5 points, and so on. Then, we looked at the total number of first, second, and third place votes that each workshop received. Then, we averaged the results from all three categories to come up with our workshop roster. In 2025, the executive producers’ votes were once again worth 4 performer votes. 73 performers voted for workshops in 2025.