Un apercu
7-18-2009
La Pieuvre était à l’aperçu de presse du spectacle de l’Improvised Shakespeare Co. en provenance de Chicago dans le cadre du festival Zoofest de Montréal.
Vous connaissiez les Lost Fingers avant leur fulgurante montée des derniers douze mois o...
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The Improvised Shakespeare Company spins hilarious brand-new yarns from notorious Olde World words
7-16-2009
Friends, readers, Montrealers, lend me your ears. Our fairest of cities hath produced yet another festival celebration, henceforth known as Zoofest, to chase away the darkness of men's souls with the sunshine of timely guffaws.
Phew, writing like Shakespeare is hard, and Blaine Swen is some...
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5-8-2009
Anyone who still needs convincing that improv can produce an independent piece of capital-A Art would do well to see The Improvised Shakespeare Company. This cast of visiting Chicagoans produces entire plays utilizing the standard tropes and antiquated language of Shakespeare. As a team, it&rsquo...
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4-21-2009
MONTREAL — Many people might think twice about perusing a Shakespeare play, much less improvising one.
But Blaine Swen and his merry band of Improvised Shakespeare Co. players take to the stage with relish, firing out Elizabethan bon mots in the course of a one-hour show that has ...
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There’s rhyme, reason and a method used by mad-about-Bard improvisers
3-30-2009
Improvisation and preparation would seem, by definition, diametrical opposites. How, then, to explain the lads (no ladies, as in Shakespeare’s day) of The Improvised Shakespeare Co., who may be the most elaborately prepared improv members in Chicago, if not anywhere?
Showcased in the...
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9-28-2008
ISC founder Blaine Swen has assembled quite possibly the most handsome, winning, smartest, wittiest, silly, talented, ambitious, intelligent troupe in Chicago. They completely improvise a Shakespearean play complete with references, archetypes, allusions, and sometimes even iambic pentameter. Sur...
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Reporting on UCB’s Del Close Marathon
8-10-2008
Oh, it’s no contest. The boys of Improvised Shakespeare completely stole the evening—even getting a standing ovation from the crowd. They performed for an hour, weaving a story about an incestuous king, his impregnated daughter and the poor farm boy who saves her (and England!). The c...
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Improvised Shakespeare Company frees its group mind with highbrow ideology
5-24-2007
An hour into a group analysis of Plato’s Republic, led by Blaine Swen, they’re hung up on the definition of beauty. If we think someone’s beautiful, but our friend doesn’t, is that person truly beautiful?, they wonder. To address the question, Swen produces three pieces of...
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4-13-2007
Seriously: Check out Improvised Shakespeare Company right now. There’s really nothing quite like it in the city of Chicago. Smart, sophisticated, downright hilarious. Even if you don’t know much about the man in the cape (er, you’re not alone), this two-act show is still highly ...
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hones its Piccolo Fringe act to a fare thee well
5-31-2006
Charleston City Paper
May 31, 2006
Chicago's Improvised Shakespeare Company hones its Piccolo Fringe act to a fare thee well
by Patrick Sharbaugh
William Shakespeare was best loved, not by the highbrow cultural elitists of his time, but by the poor slobs who compris...
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“Critics Choice” – March 31, 2006
3-31-2006
Seven strapping men in swashbuckler shirts improvise a two-act Shakespearean play based on a title suggested by the audience. At the show I saw, ‘The Taming of the Jew’ inspired the Bard’s usual themes (religion, family, betrayal) and plot devices (murders, disguises, fortunes ...
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