How do you come up with a new improv show?
During the festival Inbal Lori (Israel) teaches a workshop in which the participants develop their own improv form within just one week.
The concentrated creativity from five different countries collides and merges ideas, dislocates borders and creates a new unique form.
In this show, the workshop participants will present their newly developed format for the first time.

In English.
Admission is free.

Gorillera Barbara welcomes the most musical of her international colleagues in her "bar", in order to get to the bottom of the highs and lows of life - which is full of emotions, funny, immediate. An improvised, multi-facetted journey through all of life's circumstances.

In English.

Billa Christe (Die Gorillas) has been working intensively with the students of an improv class over several weeks - and the result is presented within the framework of the festival as The Format, for it is a brand-new improv format which the participants themselves have developed. We are as curious as the protagonists themselves…

In German.

The Gorillas' cult show – and the Ratibor's slow burner for the past 18 years. Three directors (two Gorillas and one player of the festival ensemble) compete. They let the others play. They let them sing. They direct, plot and scheme. They dance themselves. They vie for your favour!

In German.

The nine-day festival IMPRO 2018: Our Lives (March 17 – 25) is the climax of a two-year international theater project that has brought together actors from all 28 countries of the European Union. It combines the energy and vitality of improvised theater with the rich biographies and experiences of the actors, who use their own lives as a blueprint for what happens on stage. Together with the audience, the directness and strength of the authentic in combination with the abundance of cultural differences results in extraordinary evenings of theater.



A show on the explosive quality of language: Language divides or unites. Communication with and without language, with words and sounds from six European countries, arising at the moment. All senses are involved, ranging from silently sad to uproariously funny.



In all festival languages.

A popular long-running show of IMPRO - naturally, at the Improvision Song Contest the audience will determine what is sung and also which country gets most points for its song - its improvised song, naturally. Six singers from six countries will compete - with hip hop or blues songs, with arias or hard rock hymns, with chansons or songs in the style of ABBA. Who sings most beautifully? Whose lyrics are most poignant? Who touches the heart more than the others? And our twelve points go to…

In English.

When is a man a man? Herbert Groenemeyer once sang those words, and we provide the answer: here and tonight he is a full and proper man. Seven men from seven countries let it all hang out, vie for your favour, knock each other for six, and meet up for the improv testosterone summit. Brute, funny, full of energy - plugged, and poetically quiet only in dire emergencies.

In English.

Meta Impro, developped by Maja Dekleva Lapajne from Ljubljana, is a bold performance which combines theatre genres, discussions and personal confessions. Each of the four artists – Inbal Lori (Tel Aviv, Israel), Lee White (Winnipeg, Canada), Rama Nicholas (Melbourne, Australia) and musician Gilly Alfeo (Bonn, Germany) – is from a different country and thus from a specific cultural and theatrical background which gives them very different points of view of what is improvisation, of what improvisation could be, and why they keep working with it. An impressively powerful and inspiring performance is born out of curiosity and mutual respect. Meta Impro is a show about shows, an improvisation about improvisation. It's a very personal journey of the artists, taking themselves as a suggestion for their improvisations, thus learning something about themselves which they may never have found out otherwise.

In English

As always, the last evening belongs to the audience. For you will get the chance to improvise with some of your international colleagues - take it!

In all festival languages.

While some shows and workshops are approaching the festival motto on a playful way, here come the hard "facts":
In a panel discussion Brad Fortier (USA), Farah Shaer (Lebanon) and Melenaos Prokos (Greek) open the discussion and examine different facets of political improvisation, its possibilities, risks and challenges.
Afterwards, the discussion is open to all attendees, so that all interested parties come to an exchange.

The panel discussion is in English.
The admission is free.

For the second time, the Schlot is the location of the improv party of the lady participants of the festival, and following the wonderful 2015 edition, Gorilla Luise will again host the show. It's a cult show which has been a staple ingredient of IMPRO for many years.

In English.