If you’re a Twin Citian who doesn’t pay a ton of attention to improv, you might not realize we live in one of the best cities in the country for it. Hell—you might not realize that even if you are a member of the local improv scene.
“I tell my students all the time: If you want to love the Twin Cities even more, go anywhere else for a weekend … and then come back here,” says Butch Roy, co-founder and producer of the Twin Cities Improv Festival. It’s not just that there’s a ton of talent, though that’s part of it; Roy loves belonging to a joyful, collaborative community where the guiding principle is “let’s see how much fun we can have together,” and not “let’s see if we can get cast on SNL.”
And if you want to get a glimpse of some of those outstanding performers while enjoying performances from groups from Chicago, San Francisco, Omaha, and beyond? Well, there’s no better time to do it than at the annual Twin Cities Improv Festival, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary at Minneapolis’s Phoenix Theater beginning June 11.
Roy has been involved with TCIF since the beginning, and says that while the nature of the festival hasn’t really changed over the decades, the level of improv has. As one of the longest-running improv festivals in the Midwest, “We’ve become a festival that is sort of a bucket-list festival for a lot of traveling improvisers, so I’m told,” he says.
It helps that TCIF has always been a small, single-venue affair, so it’s kind of hard to get into. But for Roy, that’s part of the fun. Everyone can experience the whole thing, rather than deciding which troupes and shows to prioritize and which to miss.
And hey, Roy may be a bit biased, but he says you won’t want to miss any of it.
“I’ve been on the selection committee for all 20 years, and let me tell you, what a luxury it is to produce a festival in the Twin Cities,” he says. “Producing a festival in the Twin Cities means getting to pull from all these top-shelf [performers]. I say this every year: It’s a lineup full of headliners.”
That depth of talent and breadth of experience allows Roy to create pairings of groups that highlight locals alongside touring improvisers. San Francisco's La Spazzatura, for example, will put on an honest-to-god opera on Saturday—not a show in the style of opera, we’re talking classically trained vocalists and improvers doing an unscripted opera for the audience. They’re on the evening’s lineup with the Feel Good About Yourself Orchestra, a musical improv duo made up of locals Jill Bernard and Doug Neithercott, about whom Roy says, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen them not get a standing ovation.”
Pandemic! at the Disco is more than just a clever name; Roy says the submission video from these Omaha-based artists charmed everyone on the selection committee. “Sometimes there’s a group that hits you so hard that you plan a time slot around them,” he chuckles. In this case, that time slot is a late show on Friday night alongside local musical act Lounge-asaurus Rex.
The lineup features a few groups Roy was really excited to welcome back to the fest, including the legendary improv duo TJ and Dave. “They’re just extraordinary,” Roy says. “They’re one of those groups that’s so good that they make you kind of angry inside.” (TJ and Dave will appear on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., though only a handful of tickets remain.) Other returning groups from past Twin Cities Improv Festivals include Here: The Improvised Musical (Columbus, Ohio) and Death Hammer (Portland, Oregon).
For many years until its abrupt 2024 closure, HUGE Improv Theater was the home of the Twin Cities Improv Festival, but the fest has since returned to the Phoenix Theater on Hennepin Avenue, where it got its start 20 years ago.
Roy was one of HUGE’s founding members, and he describes the improv theater’s loss as “heartbreaking” and “devastating.” But he echoes many of the improvisers Racket spoke with last year about life after HUGE, saying that this moment actually feels full of possibility.
“There’s always somebody that’s just discovering improv for the first time,” he says. “There’s always a level one student that’s just meeting this community … and they’re going to look at this and talk about this as the good old days.”
Twin Cities Improv Festival 20
Where: The Phoenix Theater, 2605 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis
When: June 11–14
Tickets: $17.50 per show; find more info here.
