Wellington Improvisation Troupe

The Wellington Improvisation Troupe (WIT) is Wellington’s not-for-profit, community-based improvisational theatre group. WIT performs and teaches the skills of improvisational theatre at community venues around the Wellington region.

Theatre is made up on the spot by some of Wellington’s leading improvisers and courageous newcomers alike, based on suggestions from the audience. WIT players share a love of storytelling and work together as a team to inspire the audience. WIT theatre is sometimes serious, often hilarious and always totally unpredictable.

WIT members performed in the ‘Micetro’ show that won the New Zealand International Fringe Festival Best Comedy Award in 2003, and decided it was about time they formed a group that had a name. WIT brought together many of Wellington’s casual improvoholics, out-of-work actors and bored public servants. Now made up of over forty members, the group welcomes people from all walks of life.

The establishment of WIT reflects the enduring popularity of improvisation around the globe and its resurgence in New Zealand.

WIT launched properly in 2004, participated in the New Zealand Fringe and Comedy Festivals and become licensed as an International Theatresports Institute group. WIT performs both long and short-form improvisation.

Major WIT shows include:

• Micetro Improv, a licensed format where improvisers battle through rounds of elimination to become the "Micetro" for the night. Winner of the 2003 New Zealand International Fringe Festival Comedy Award.
• Gorilla Theatre, a licensed format where four-five experienced improvisers compete as directors of scenes to take home a prize – the gorilla.
• The Improv Divas, New Zealand’s first all-female improvisation act that performs various formats – ‘highly inventive’ (National Business Review).
• Lovepossibly, WIT's first long-form show - an improvised "chick-flick" where the audience calls the shots.
• The All-New Old-Time Radio Show - the first improv theater show in New Zealand to use sound as the principal medium for improvisation.
• The Young and the Witless - an improvised soap opera, which usually runs over Winter in Wellington.
• WIT-side Story - WIT's long-form musical and latest format.
• The Wishing Tree - Based on a Japanese myth of love, luck and fate

WIT also produces the New Zealand Improv Festival, which brings together shows and troupes from around New Zealand and Australia.

WIT Objectives

WIT’s specific objectives as listed in the incorporated society’s founding document are as follows:

• To promote, develop and foster the performance of improvised theatre and comedy in the Wellington region.
• To teach the skills of improvised theatre and comedy through workshops, classes and any other means to members and to the wider Wellington community.
• To encourage the having of fun and the not taking of oneself too seriously.

WIT Creative Background and Philosophy

The Creative Philosophy of WIT resides in the foundation of the teachings of Keith Johnstone, a world renowned teacher in the art of improvisation and its links to the theatre. WIT hosted Keith Johnstone for a national masterclass in improvisation in Wellington in June 2004, producing The Secret Origin of Improv, the only show ever directed by Johnstone in New Zealand.

WIT has three creative drivers – telling stories, cooperation and having fun. WIT believe these drivers are interdependent and create the best kind of improvisational theatre. This philosophy makes WIT unique in New Zealand and is reflected in its choice of a not-for-profit organisational structure. Comedy is regarded as the pre-requisite that improvisation is best known for on a public front. However, the philosophy of WIT aims to also explore beyond the bounds of purely comedic improvisation.