Hey Chicagoland Wheel Tree friends!

Hey Chicagoland Wheel Tree friends!

I’m proud to present Improv Techniques for the Gaming Table, a quarterly series of workshops to help roleplaying gamers take their tabletop experience to the next level!  Each session combines an intensive workshop of improv techniques used by actors on stage with a practical example of play at the gaming table.  Our instructors not only have extensive performance and teaching backgrounds, but also well-established nerd credentials. Expand your roleplaying horizons with skills to create kickass characters, establish meaningful relationships and develop stories that sing.  Great for both GMs and players!

All sessions take place at Strawdog Theater Company’s Hugen Hall. Lunch will be provided for all participants.

Here’s information on our first two workshops – our first session is coming up soon, so save the date!

Group Storytelling  

Instructor:  Steven Townshend 

Saturday, March 14th 9am – 2:30pm

In this cooperative storytelling workshop, participants use improv techniques to level up their narrative skills, both as players and as game masters, in tabletop role-playing games. Through theatrical improvisation, players explore ways to add to the game story beyond the margins of their character sheets, while GMs tap the powerful creative potential of the group mind. Through creative play, participants learn techniques to walk both sides of the screen as players become GMs, and GMs become players, each sharing the responsibilities and the joys of a well-told story.

About Steve Townshend

Steve Townshend is a freelance writer for the Dungeons & Dragons game for Wizards of the Coast, and has written for Paizo, Sasquatch, Pelgrane, Schwalb Entertainment, and Four-in-Hand Games. Before writing games, Steve worked in Chicago as an actor. He studied with Del Close at iO and traveled the U.S. and Canada performing classical theatre with companies such as Repercussion Theatre (Montreal), American Players Theatre, and the Utah Shakespearean Festival.

Playing Well With Others: How to be the companion everyone wants on their campaign

Instructor:  Pixy Belmont 

Saturday, June 13th 9am – 2:30pm

In this skills based workshop, participants learn a variety of techniques to quickly and effectively support and elevate choices made by other players at the table as well as making and using relationships to spur storytelling and problem solving in game.  Participants will be encouraged to take action – just do it, don’t talk about it!

About Pixy Belmont-Leo

Pixy Belmont-Leo has been both and improvisor and a gamer since her own awkward adolescence.  With training from both Second City and ComedySportz, Pixy specializes in making improv easy, accessible and fun, using games and exercises that set up the players for easy success while teaching specific skills in a stress-free environment.  As a gamer Pixy is a renegade and a rogue, delighting in departing from the quest to see what’s off the beaten path.  She often rolls up tiny, nimble characters whom invariably get drunk, mouth off to an ogre, and get squashed before they can reach level 10.

An advance registration link will be up for both workshops by tonight!