Heather trained in Physical Theatre but after graduation started her lifelong affair with improv joining Kepow Theatre with Kevin Tomlinson in 2004 and has been with the Maydays since 2006.
The Maydays were winners of the award for best comedy show in the Brighton festival in 2007 and have performed for audiences, and trained improvisers all over the country, even going to Chicago to train at the IO theatre in 2008. Heather is also part of a two person improv team with Jules Munns. Their show ‘Ten Thousand Million Love Stories’ is a multi-character longform improv show around the theme of love which they took to the Improvised Play Festival in Austin Texas April 2013. Heather is winner of Foghorn’s UK Improv Smackdown 2013 and winner of The Latest Brighton Festival and Fringe awards Best female performer 2013. She compliments her improv career with acting, sketch comedy and singing. She has been a performer with Brighton’s satirical comedy sketch company ‘The Treason Show’ since 2007, as well as a sometimes singer with the mercury music prize nominated Electric Soft Parade.
Joe Bill is widely regarded as one of the best Teachers of Scenic and Comedic Improvisation in America today.
He first encountered Improvisation in 1977, when he learned some basic games for performance in his group at Broad Ripple High School in Indianapolis, IN. By 1990 Joe has performed professionally with 5 different Sketch Comedy and Improv groups, studied with Del Close at Improv Olympic, and with Martin DeMaat, Michael Gellman, Bernie Sahlins and others before graduating from The Second City Training Center, Co-founded the Annoyance Theatre (all in Chicago), and was making his living as a Nationally Touring Stand Up Comedian. It was also 1990 when his passion for teaching Improvisation kicked into high gear, and a unique approach to Improvised Scene and Character began to be articulated by a number of teachers at Chicago’s Annoyance Theatre, lead by the visionary Artistic Director of Annoyance, Mick Napier.
Since then Joe and Mark Sutton (his partner in the Nationally Touring Improvised Production, BASSPROV), have evolved the Annoyance approach into POWER IMPROV, which they both have been teaching all over the U.S., Canada and Europe, at Festivals, Theaters and Universities since 2000. Joe has performed, coached, directed and innovated Improv Structure with a vast number of successful groups including The Screw Puppies at Annoyance, Georgia Pacific at iO Chicago, with whom he developed The Bat, The Throwdown at Donny’s Skybox at Second City and The Playground and The Scramble which he has taught and directed in 9 cities in the U.S. using performers from a mix of Theaters and Groups in each city. Joe has taught and or performed at every major Improv Festival in The United States, and in addition to BASSPROV, he also tours and performs with Minneapolis Improv Mastermind Jill Bernard in their 2 person show, SCRAM!, which features 3 different 2 person scenes that happen at the same time.
Joe currently teaches and does corporate training at iO Chicago, is an Artistic Associate for The Chicago Improv Festival, and acts as an Artistic Adviser for a number of Improvisation and Comedy Theaters all over the U.S. and Canada.
