Sudbury, Ont., improv community reaches out to local high schools

Scott Florence says improv changed his life for the better.

Florence is a member of the Oddhawks improv group in Sudbury, Ont., and has been a proponent for local high schools to start improv clubs.

When he was in high school, Florence said he was an "angsty teen" and it was his accidental involvement in theatre (to impress a girl) and then improv, that helped turn his life around.

"For the first time, I suddenly felt like all of those weird things that I like to say, and do and all of those sort of outrageous statements that I like to make, they weren't slapped down," he said.

"They weren't treated as some kind of social faux pas. They were, in fact, embraced and encouraged and rewarded."

The Oddhawks hold bi-weekly improv jams at the Sudbury Indie Cinema, and Florence has been meeting with high schools to form teams for the Canada Improv Games.

Grace Bellmore coaches Laurentian University's collegiate improv team, and said the pandemic had a big impact on the artform.

"A lot of high school improv was actually really hit hard by the pandemic but a lot of them were able to come back, except for improv in the north," she said.

Bellmore said the Laurentian team also faced some challenges due to the university's insolvency in 2021.

'We lost all of our theatre programming," she said.

But despite those setbacks, Bellmore said the team won a recent competition against other Ontario universities including Western University, Brock University and the University of Ottawa.

Bellmore encourages improv for people of all ages.

"They realize that it's so much fun," she said.

"And I think it's even tapping into that childlike sense of wonder that the adult world, I think so much tells us we can't have, you know, we can't be silly. We can't be all these things."

As for improv in local high schools, Bellmore said the interest is there, and they're working to rebuild what was lost during the pandemic.