Workshops
Snow Day Workshops
Enjoy an incredible collection of topics from outstanding teachers all while helping us raise money for charity! That’s right, all 100% of proceeds from workshops are donated to our cause!
Want to take multiple workshops? Add each individual workshop to your cart through Passage (our sales processing partner) then complete check out.
NOTE: Workshops are held at 3 different locations. Be sure to check the website for your correct venue and arrive 10-15min early to find parking and check in.
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Workshops are held at a few locations:
Go Comedy’s HQ - 255 E 9 Mile Rd, Ferndale, MI 48220
Go Comedy! Improv Theater - 261 E 9 Mile Rd, Ferndale, MI 48220
Go U Training Center - 1915 E 9 Mile Rd, Ferndale, MI 48220
Parking is available at Go Comedy’s parking lot directly next to the theater and HQ. Go U is a mile east down 9 mile and has its own parking lot and free street parking. On week nights with shows (Wed-Fri), please leave the theater parking lot open for show patrons. You may utilize the court parking next door of the theater. Otherwise there is metered street parking and a metered lot across the street next to the Ferndale Library.
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Workshops are finale sale. They are non-refundable and non-transferable.
Please email us immediately if you need to cancel for whatever reason so we may allow another student on the waitlist to participate.
Please arrive 10 minutes early to allow for parking and settling in for a smooth start. Students more than 10 min late may not be able to participate as this creates a disruption to other students and their paid experience.
If you are sick and show any symptoms, we kindly ask you to not attend. Please do not come in for the safety of our students, our teachers, and anyone they come in contact with - it’s a looong week of Snow Day to get through and we want to have a strong finish!
Go Comedy! and Snow Day Marathon will not condone or tolerate conduct which may constitute sexual harassment on the part of any of its employees, and holds the same standard for its students. Any student found to have engaged in such conduct will be subject to immediate discipline, up to and including discharge from classes with no refund. Students must be sensitive to acts of conduct which may be considered offensive by fellow students and teachers both on and off stage. Students must refrain from engaging in such conduct; your teachers are held to the same standard. Please report any harassment immediately to our GO U Staff, or to our Experience Advocate, Anne Fitzpatrick: anne@gocomedy.net.
This is a safe space, Snow Day Marathon and Go Comedy! reserve the right to ask anyone to leave if their behavior interferes with that.
Overall thank you for respecting the time of all of our instructors, being kind and empathetic to other humans, and supporting Snow Day with your participation.
Let’s all have a fun and safe Snow Day!
What’s the What? with Travis Pelto
Don't be afraid to embrace the plot! This workshop will teach improvisers how to keep the plot of your scene at the forefront by prioritizing their character's motivation and balancing games in a scene. This workshop will also include lessons on editing, emotionally-driven character work and strong initiations.
Prerequisite: At least one year of long form improv experience is strongly advised
Cost: $50.00
Length: 2 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
TRAVIS PELTO
Travis Pelto has been performing improv on and off over 20 years, primarily at Go Comedy! Improv Theater and the Planet Ant Theater. He can typically be found improvising with Joe Hingelberg in their troupe Forever Fifteen. His latest work is Big Big Baby, an animated sketch comedy project he worked on with Joe Hingelberg and Shawn Golden. You can find that on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok at @thatsabigbigbaby.
Improv for Young Performing Artists with Malen Taylor
A SNOW DAY WORKSHOP FOR KIDS
Are you ready kids (aye aye Captain!). Get ready to unlock your creativity like you never have before with Improv Class! Whether you're a beginner or you are a season pro, this class will help you discover the magic of improv! But guess what? It’s not just about being the best performer or being funny. You will gain skills in collaborating with others, “yes anding”, and building confidence, both on and off stage. You will leave class not only a stronger performer, but a more confident person ready to take on your everyday life (and bonus, a six pack from how much you’ll laugh during class!). So what are you waiting for? Sign up today to experience comedy and live theatre in a way you never have before!
Prerequisite: For 5th-8th grade aged kids
Cost: $40.00
Length: 2 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
MALEN TAYLOR
Malen Taylor is a Resident Company member at Go Comedy! Not only is she an Improviser and a Musical Actress, but she is also a Director, Puppeteer, and Choreographer. She found Go Comedy! by attending the Teen Camps and Classes when she was a kid, and she’s grateful to be back full circle teaching as an adult!
Along with performing in the Resident Company at Go Comedy, Malen has toured all throughout the Midwest with The Brainstormers Inspiration Factory, performing Improv for kids during the day. You also may find her performing in The Dinner Detective Troy! Malen has attended several intensives and workshops, including Second City Chicago and Improv Utopia East. She has had the chance to direct plays, choreograph musicals, and teach improv, puppetry, and stage combat to children as young as 8 years old, all the way up to college students!
Malen loves teaching students because she gets the chance to see them grow not only as performers, but as people in their creativity and their confidence. She truly believes that improv has the power to change lives, because it changed her’s! There is something for everybody to enjoy when it comes to improv!
Musical Improv: Just the Hits with Dan Iwrey
Prepare to unleash your inner icon! Whether you’re into Dream Pop, Emo, Bubble Grunge, Deathcore, Shoegaze, Neoclassical, or Hall and Oates, we’ll explore the techniques and perfect the energy needed to bring epic pop/rock tunes to the improv stage. Throw on that bedazzled leather jacket and join us for an afternoon of musical improv epicness.
Prerequisite: At least one year of long form improv experience is strongly advised
Cost: $60.00
Length: 3 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
DAN IWREY
Dan Iwrey is an improv performer and instructor at Go Comedy. He is a member of launch group Gemini Jr. and a current cast member of the Dragon Company. He has performed at improv festivals and theaters across the country including Upright Citizens Brigade, the Magnet Theater, the PIT, iO Theater, Third Coast Improv Theater, and Planet Ant. He studied improv at the Magnet Theater and UCB.
Acting for Improvisers - Stanislavski and Scene Dynamics with Oliver Georgiou
“On the stage do not run for the sake of running, or suffer for the sake of suffering. Don’t act “in general”, for the sake of action; always act with a purpose.”
― Konstantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares
A part of my acting training that always stuck with me was the Stanislavski script analysis exercise of splitting a scene into beats, writing in the character's objective for that beat, and then the actions they're taking to achieve it. If they don't achieve it, they'll have to give up or try a different tactic; if they do, then the script will tell you what happens next. When there is no script, we have to flip the equation and let the desires and actions of the characters guide us through the unknown that is our unscripted play.
In this class, we'll play with objectives, super-objectives, and tactics. We'll learn healthy conflict dynamics, to recognize when a beat ends, and how to move forward with purpose. And we'll discover the benefits of both stumbling in with nothing and starting with a clear sense of direction.
Prerequisite: At least one year of long form improv experience for advance scene work
Cost: $60.00
Length: 3 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
OLIVER GEORGIOU
Oliver is passionate about unscripted theatre and the cross-section that exists between acting and improvisation. He runs SODA Impro through which he produces Played Out, a three-act unscripted play with an emphasis on slow, character-driven scenes in which narrative develops organically. Current regular collaborators include Lara Johnson, Naomi Snieckus, Matt Baram, and Reid Janisse. He is a faculty member at The Assembly Improv in Toronto. Previous specialty course offerings in Toronto, Detroit, and Los Angeles, include: Viewpoints, Mindfulness, and Meisner for the Actor-Improviser, Acting for Improvisers – Impulse, Insight, and Emotion, The Game In Narrative, and Intro to Viewpoints for Improvisation.
The long-awaited Vampire Zombies... From Space!, a 1950s horror-comedy homage starring Oliver as a chain-smoking greaser heartthrob, is currently racking up awards and nominations around the world in the genre film festival circuit. He's delighted to have worked so closely with Bygone Theatre in the past few years on live stage productions of The Rear Window, The Birds, and Wayne & Shuster, Live! He also helped develop the roles of Edwin in Kristen Da Silva's The Bluff (Theatre Orangeville) and Mr. Gordon in Vishesh Abeyratne's workshop of Blood Offering (Alma Matter Productions). Oliver returns to Detroit biannually for the Snow Day Improv Marathon and the Detroit Improv Festival. He's an alumnus of Second City Toronto House Co, and can be found sporting a horrible pseudo-Irish accent in the Canadian Podcast Award-winning series Caverns & Comedians.
Instagram: @o_georgiou
Strong Initiations with Steve Kleinedler
In the first moments of a scene, improvisers are issuing a promise to the audience and themselves about the scene that's about to unfold. If you're an improviser who flames out in the middle of scenes, unsure of what to do next or where to take the scene -- if you find yourself throwing out new offers mid-scene, this workshop is for you. Everything you need to know about a scene is at the beginning; everything that follows is predicated by what's come before. Learn how to recognize everything the beginning of a scene has to offer so that you can mine the potential without having to restart a scene every twenty seconds in the hopes of finding something better, funnier, or newer.
Prerequisite: Basic 101 or Intro Level Classes
Cost: $50.00
Length: 2 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
STEVE KLEINEDLER
Steve Kleinedler has been improvising on and off for the past 40 years and consistently since 2000. Steve has taught improv at ImprovBoston (2003-2011, 2019-2023); at Philly Improv Theater (2011-2018); and at workshops in Baltimore (BIF), Bethlehem, Boston, Chapel Hill (NCCAF), Chicago, Detroit (DIF), Providence (PIF), Philadelphia, Pittsburgh (PCF), San Juan (MATCH), Sarasota, and Wilmington (Tax Free), as well as performing at festivals in Austin, Toronto, and Washington DC. Steve currently is one-half of the duo Sad Trombone with Ralph Andracchio and one-half of the duo Directions ... With Harry and Steve with Harry Gordon, and occasionally appears in The Pickle at Union Comedy.
Who the Hell are We? A Relationship Rescue Improv Workshop with Nancy Hayden
We’re four minutes into a shaky improv scene. We’re getting some laughs, sort of, but the longer the scene goes on the more obvious it becomes - we don’t know who the hell we are to each other. My character’s name is Diane, I think, and yours is something like Steve…or Stan. But are we married? Roommates? Co-workers? Like…who the hell are we? And if we don’t know, why should the audience care?
Sound familiar?
Yeah. It happens to all of us. Sometimes a lot. So let’s break that cycle. Let’s work on making strong, clear choices about our characters and relationships. Relationships that will drive the scene, create compelling theater, and make our jobs up there so. much. SIMPLER.
See you there!
Prerequisite: You need to have taken one level of improv classes anywhere and know the basics
Cost: $60.00
Length: 3 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
NANCY HAYDEN
Nancy Hayden began as a writer/performer in the Mainstage cast of The Second City in Detroit. After co-writing and appearing in five revues, Nancy went on to become a director of several Second City productions, including the first ever national touring Theatricals production, “My Cousin’s Wedding.” Other directing titles include “Blah-Blah Sista’hood” and the Second City Detroit Mainstage revue “Jihad It Up to Here.”
In her television career, Nancy has worked as a staff writer for “Detroiters” on Comedy Central, as well as several productions for Bravo, including “Bravo After Hours” and the digital series, “Ex-Housewife.” She also wrote shorts for DreamWorksTV and AwesomenessTV and co-wrote “Love, Factually,” the hit holiday parody that ran at The Kennedy Center.
Nancy has taught improvisation, acting, directing, and writing at The Second City and improv/sketch creation at Michigan State University and California Institute of the Arts. She served as Producer of The Second City Detroit before becoming Associate Artistic Director of The Second City Hollywood. She was then named Artistic Director of the Second City Training Center in Chicago. Most recently Nancy was thrilled to return to her beloved hometown of Detroit when she was named Executive Director of the Detroit Creativity Project, a non-profit that provides improv training as a crucial life skill to the students of the Detroit public schools.
Acting for Improvisers - Impulse, Insight, and Emotion with Oliver Georgiou
"Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances." - Sanford Meisner
Truth is subjective; it is not fact. As human beings without telepathic powers, we can only truly know ourselves. However our tiny little monkey brains love finding patterns and narratives in everything others do; we make up lies to support our need to be the "main character". There's no better place to apply this inherited irrational subjectivity than onstage.
"Acting is reacting." - somebody else
In this class we'll work on reacting honestly to external stimuli, allowing our bodies to inform our emotions, and allowing our emotions to inform our perceptions. Let's get in trouble by acting on our own honest lies.
Prerequisite: One year of improv study and experience
Cost: $60.00
Length: 3 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
OLIVER GEORGIOU
Oliver is an actor, improviser, and comedian based in Toronto. He runs SODA Impro, an unscripted theatre company, and performs as half of the comedy duos Johnson & Georgiou with Lara Johnson and Jan & George with Reid Janisse. Oliver has taught improv comedy for over a decade and has since specialized in acting and narrative improvisation. He is currently a faculty member at The Assembly Improv. Previous specialty course offerings in Toronto, Detroit, and Los Angeles, include: Intro to Viewpoints for Improvisation, The Game In Narrative, and the Play Play workshop series at Sweet Action Theatre.
Recently, he's developed three original roles onstage: Mitch in Emily Dix's adaptation of The Birds (Bygone Theatre), Edwin in Kristen Da Silva's The Bluff (Theatre Orangeville), and Mr. Gordon in Vishesh Abeyratne's workshop of Blood Offering (Alma Matter Productions), and was part of the all-star cast for Wayne & Shuster, Live! this past spring. Oliver's improv & solo sketch comedy has delighted audiences in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Toronto. He has been a headlining act at the Detroit Improv Festival, is an alumnus of Second City Toronto House Co, and can be found on iTunes in the Canadian Podcast Award-winning series Caverns & Comedians.
Instagram: @o_georgiou
What Was That? Exercises in Listening with Josh McDaniel
This workshop will focus on the listening aspect of improv. Exercises will be geared toward strengthening the skill while highlighting that listening in the heat of a scene can be hard. The goal will be to give participants as many tools as possible and time to explore without the pressure of getting things perfect. At the end the skills will be used in full sets to further explore their use.
Prerequisite: You need to have taken one level of improv classes anywhere and know the basics
Cost: $50.00
Length: 3 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
20% OFF Weekday Workshops
Use SnowDay promo code at checkout for workshops on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
JOSH MCDANIEL
Josh McDaniel is a local improvisor, actor, and writer here in southeast Michigan. He teaches improv through the Youth Arts Alliance as well as Go Comedy! Improv Theater where he’s also a resident company cast member. During the Halloween season he acts a monster at Wiard’s Night Terrors.
Playing Positively Positive! with Lori Kurkowski
It’s very easy to fall into characters that are negative or angry this workshop will explore choosing to play the scene in a positive and happy way.
Prerequisite: You need to have taken one level of improv classes anywhere and know the basics
Cost: $40.00
Length: 2 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
20% OFF Weekday Workshops
Use SnowDay promo code at checkout for workshops on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
LORI KURKOWSKI
Lori has been performing improv since 2018. She is a current member of Go Comedy’s res co and is a member of Gemini Junior Go Comedy’s launch group from 2022-2023. She also teaches at Go Comedy. She also was a member of Planet Ants farm team Ants in the Hall from 2022-2023. Currently is a farm team member at Planet Ant on the long form development team.
Mindfulness, Physicality, and the Performer with Natalie Roxas - EMAIL TO REGISTER / ONLINE REGISTRATION CLOSED
Ever feel rushed to be ‘on’ in a moment’s notice or experience uneasy transitions from everyday life to on-stage or jumping from one set to the next? Wonder how to take better care of yourself as a performer and move with intention throughout a scene? Wished your physical character choice wasn’t so exhausting? (We’ve all been there.)
This workshop teaches mindfulness techniques to practice before sets as a tool to ground yourself as a performer and during sets to better pace your scenes, body awareness for heightened stage presence and exercises of how to safely engage in movement to explore physicality to bring characters to life.
Get ready to wear something comfortable to move, stretch, breathe, and laugh in.
Prerequisite: You need to have taken one level of improv classes anywhere and know the basics and be open to a mindfulness practice
Cost: $40.00
Length: 3 hours
All proceeds are donated to Snow Day’s fundraising goal.
20% OFF Weekday Workshops
Use SnowDay promo code at checkout for workshops on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
NATALIE ROXAS
Natalie Roxas is an improvisor and a RYT 200 yoga instructor. She completed Go Comedy’s entire training program in addition to two musical improv classes with Jeremy St Martin and a mindfulness class with Ken Hall. In 2019, Natalie was cast in Rock-O-Matic, Go Comedy’s musical improv house team and performed in several festivals in Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, and Grand Rapids. She is also a member of the duo Wieck & Wieck with her husband Bob Wieck, a Harold troupe called Maroon 8 and a musical improv troupe called Guardians of the Lighthouse. She is the founder of Run for Laughs, a wellness and charity event that ran for three years in efforts to unite the improv community during the pandemic. She currently serves on the Snow Day Marathon committee since 2019 and a co-producer to this year’s We Wear Pink show at Snow Day 17.
In the Metro Detroit community, Natalie is better known as Yes And Yogi Girl where she blends the two philosophies of improv and yoga in her yoga teachings for over five years. She has been manifesting ways to further incorporate the two and now has this offering to empower fellow improvisors with greater self-awareness to enrich their experience both on and off the stage.
Instagram: @yesandyogigirl
Website: www.yesandyogigirl.com