Join us for the Royal Improv Festival BiPOC Improv Jam — a free community event hosted by Charlotte’s own Play Cousinz, the city’s only BiPOC improv group. This jam is open to everyone, with people of color especially encouraged to come play, connect, and give improv a try in a welcoming and supportive space.

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Come play. Come watch. Come learn.

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Last year, this was one of our most popular events! Reserve your spot!

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And stay after to watch the Play Cousinz perform in our 7pm Show.

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Part of the week-long Royal Improv Festival by Queen City Comedy, celebrating local and national improv talent across Charlotte.

Diane Jorge — creator of the award-winning Solovela: An Improvised Solo Telenovela — will help you explore the fundamentals of solo performance, building characters, and creating worlds with confidence. You’ll experiment with different approaches to solo improv while developing tools that support both solo and ensemble long-form work.

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Diane Jorge is a Miami-born comedian, actor, and improviser with over 17 years of experience. Her acclaimed show Solovela won the 2025 Orlando Fringe Critics’ Choice Award for Best Solo Show – Improv. Known for her bold characters, humor, and playful teaching style, Diane encourages performers to take risks, trust themselves, and discover what they can create on their own.

How you physically engage with the world and how you emotionally connect to it are two essential building blocks in long form improv. In this workshop, instructors Power Sauce (Stephen Gillikin & Wendy Natividad) will create a welcoming and supportive space where improvisers will explore the mind-body connection between our physicality and our characters' motivations. This aspect of playing with the world of a scene can provide immense power in accessing your characters' spectrum of emotions.

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About Power Sauce:As a duo both on- and off-stage, Power Sauce (Stephen Gillikin & Wendy Natividad) delights audiences with the fun-filled freefall of two-person long form improv. Evoking boundless backdrops and a cavalcade of characters, they have performed at festivals in LA, NYC, and the Philippines. Stephen is an actor, writer, and teaching artist. Wendy is a producer, writer, and creative laborer. Together, they are also the organizers of Community Improv, which offers accessible and affordable workshops, jams, and shows where players can build skills to apply off-stage for enriching the rest of one's life and community. Visit communityimprov.org to learn more.

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In this workshop, performers will identify their natural “breed” and explore both the strengths and limitations of that instinct. Through a mix of acting-based exercises, improv drills, and scene work, you’ll practice adapting your style—learning when to lean into your instincts and when to shift in order to better support your scene partner and the ensemble as a whole.

 

Inspired by Pirate, Robot, Ninja (Billy Merritt & Will Hines), Improvise Like a Dog is a playful and insightful workshop that uses the instincts of popular dog breeds to explore ensemble dynamics, character behavior, and scene work. This is not about labeling yourself—it’s about increasing awareness, flexibility, and responsiveness in your work.

 
Karla Dingle is a neurodiverse and disabled actor, improviser, and teaching artist. She serves as the Education Director at Queen City Comedy and Artistic Director of the Dingle Drama Repertory Company. Her work blends acting and improv to help performers access emotional truth, deepen listening, and respond instinctually through vulnerability, connection, and whole-body presence.

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Great improv isn’t about one person being funny — it’s about building something together. In this fun, low-pressure workshop, Play Cousinz Improv digs into the heart of ensemble play: listening, having each other’s backs, staying connected, and making the group look good.

 

Through games, exercises, and scenework, we’ll work on creating stronger group chemistry and learning how to move as one team instead of a bunch of solo players. Come ready to play, connect, and build together one brick at a time.

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About Play Cousinz:

With over 30 years combined experience, Play Cousinz is Charlotte/North Carolina's Primary Bi-POC (as far as we have researched)!

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This class is also part of our monthly Improv Building Blocks series!

Join us for the Royal Improv Festival Jam — a free community event open to all experience levels. Hosted by Charlotte’s long-running improv group Sunday Supper (because of course it’s Sunday), this jam is the perfect place to jump in, meet new people, and celebrate improv together.

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Come play. Come watch. Come learn.

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Last year, this was our most popular event! Reserve your spot!

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Part of the week-long Royal Improv Festival by Queen City Comedy, celebrating local and national improv talent across Charlotte.​​

The TJ and Dave workshop focuses on two person scenes as the basis to work on the basics of Improvisation. We will use the ideas of honesty and the moment at hand as starts for our scenework. We will also explore the concepts of Heat and Weight and paying close attention to delve into relationship and the meaning of the moment we have inherited when the lights first come up.
 

Since 2002, TJ & DAVE began performing at the iO Theater in Chicago. In 2006 they began an Off Broadway run, performing monthly at The Barrow Street Theatre in New York City. The 2009 South by Southwest Film festival included the documentary "Trust Us, This is All Made Up" directed by Alex Karpovsky, which chronicles a "T. J. and Dave" performance.