During lockdown, I had an idea… putting together an ensemble of talented performers and score the impossible prize: stealing audience’s hearts with laughter!
Finding people who understood improvised heists however, was more rare than a giant pink diamond!
The most difficult part, I discovered, was convincing Canadian and Bangalore performers to be theatrically antagonistic! For a time, I led Mindful Menace workshops to great MuHaHas.
Then I tackled side support for the group action scenes. It’s difficult to re-enact those crowd chasing moments with only two people on stage. To be fair, many more performers were used to the opposite problem — leaving the stage when you just wanted to perform a Canadian Cross
Finally, The Plan itself had to be both solid and coherent, and not constrain improvisors to narrative beats more than their character choices. How do you solve a problem like Maria? Self-selected offers took us a long way. Does “The Sound of Music” use heist elements? We can die on that hill another time
In January 2026, over 10 workshop hours, we’re going to put it all together in a deep dive into the heist genre. With only 12 people allowed, we’ll discover together whether we’ve learned fast and furious enough to bring a heists to the Ottawa stage
Sign up today at Wayward Improvised Theatre!
The Velvet Duke 
Top three themes for the workshop:
Long form narrative (playing a single character for longer than a scene)
Playing with timing, and
Creating and solving planned problems as an ensemble
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