Gamebreaker

Have you seen performers shine at certain improvisational and theatre games and wished you could be a gamebreaker too?

In this two-hour workshop, Velvet Wells will facilitate the introduction, discussion, and unlocking of playful variations to some of their favorite games. We’ll play competitive games collaboratively and vice versa, and then play games concurrently, to unlock our personal cheat codes, our strengths as players, and where we need our partners to make the saving play

By the end of the session, you’ll be able to:

• Identify different roles within the games
• Introduce the game premise and rules to an audience
• Follow the fun within the game (even those played-out games, yes!)
• Brainstorm rule variations to reinvigorate the game sets in your shows

Who Can Attend: Improv performers with previous experience in short form and long form styles

Musical Improv Primer

As a consummate performer and facilitator, Velvet Wells (they/them) has earned a reputation for patiently guiding performers past anxiety and social conditioning, so you can find your fun with vocal musical improvisation

During the three hour workshop, we’ll create made up verses and choruses while playing with rhyme, rhythm, and choreography

The Musical Improv Primer will reinforce three skills that you can use off and on stage:

• Active Listening to the music, your stage partners, and the audience
• Brainstorming phrases and perspectives
• Collaborating with others and your own ideas

Whether you’re preparing to play musical improv games or join in a made up musical, the Musical Improv Primer will get you stage ready in one session

Who Can Attend: Improv Performers interested in pushing past previous misgivings and uncomfortable musical moments

This workshop SOLD OUT at the following festivals: Black and Funny Improv Festival (2024), GNATA Festival (2024, Oakville edition), and Ottawa Improv Jamboree (2023)

About Your Facilitator

Velvet Wells (they/them) developed the All Request Radio musical improvisational format in 2020 and began touring the live show in 2022. In addition to being an award-winning queer, Black, lyrical comedian and creator-producer, Velvet facilitates performance and applied improvisational sessions across North America. They graduated from Second City Toronto Musical Conservatory, as well as advanced improvisational studies with international instructors.  web: thevelvetduke.com socials: @TheVelvetDuke

Rhymes with Orange

Join the waiting list

In this two hour workshop, we explain, expand, and enhance your rhyming skills through pattern games, short poems and speeches, and (maybe) songs 

What you’ll achieve:

• Letting go of “True Rhymes” and perfection… for fun and profit!
• Playing with common rhyming schemes
• Setting yourself up a rhyme and reacting to rhyme choices made in your vicinity

Who Can Attend: This session is open to any English-speaking adult willing to step out of their comfort zone by sharing out loud

Community Accountability
We'll create Consent Informed Spaces for each other in these workshops

About Your Facilitator

Velvet Wells (they/them, Ottawa) is a queer, Black, lyrical comedian, and creator-producer of All Request Radio. They are an award-winning performer-playwright for “(Re)Tired Magical Man” (Emerging IBPOC Artist laureate 2023, Ottawa Arts Council); Emerging Artist of the Year 2022, JRG Society for the Arts). They are an accessibility and anti-Black racism advocate, consultant, and facilitator. They are the Strategic Partnership Lead for The Black Pledge Collective, regional representative for International TheatreSports Institute, and mentor with Youth Infringement Festival (directing, playwright) and Toronto Fringe Festival (producing).

Velvet Wells facilitates performance and applied improvisational sessions across North America, including work for SC Johnson, Black and Funny Improv Festival, and Wagner-Green Center for Access & Inclusion. Consistently lauded for their disability accessibility measures, they engage the theatre world offstage through the lens of social justice and community care