Theatrical Improv

### Drop-In Improv Class — Beginner Friendly **Improv for good people.** Join us for a fun, beginner-friendly drop-in improv class focused on play, laughter, and connection — in a supportive, no-pressure environment. You don’t need performance experience, improv training, or a “funny personality.” You just need a willingness to try. *** ### What to expect Each session includes: * Friendly introductions * Easy warm-ups * Guided short-form improv games * Lots of laughter in a small, welcoming group The exercises are inspired by shows like *Whose Line Is It Anyway?*, but the focus is on participation, not performance. *** ### A few important reassurances ✔ You don’t need to be “funny” ✔ You don’t need improv experience ✔ You *do* need curiosity and a willingness to play Everything is explained clearly, and you’re never put on the spot. *** ### Who this class is for This class is a great fit if you: * Are curious about improv but a little nervous * Want to meet new people in a genuinely welcoming space * Enjoy playful learning and low-pressure activities * Want a break from overthinking and daily stress Many people arrive unsure and leave smiling. *** ### How Meetup fits in Many participants first discover Laughy Place Improv through Meetup, attend a class or two, and then decide whether they’d like to continue by booking future classes directly through the website. There’s no pressure — Meetup is meant to be an easy, friendly way to try things out. *** ### Location & logistics 📍 **Theatre on the Run** 3700 S Four Mile Run Dr, Arlington, VA Parking and entrance are on the opposite side of the building from Four Mile Run Drive. Use the door labeled **“Arlington Cultural Affairs – Main Entrance.”** Ring the doorbell to be buzzed in. Sunday classes are usually in room 174 and Wednesday classes are usually in room 147, but you can check the class list by the concierge desk to be certain. I’ll be in the room about 20 minutes early to set up and meet folks as they arrive. If you can, please come a few minutes before the scheduled start time so we can kick things off together. *** Looking forward to laughing with you!

LOCATION CHANGE: In June we are back at Elwood Smith Community Center, Rockville! \*\*\* The community-singing event where where everything's made up and the point — to sing for our lives — matters. Our leaders will teach you parts to sing for spontaneously-composed choral pieces. We play a variety of listening/music/singing games, and create safe opportunities for participants to improvise as little or as much as they might like. Good for all skill levels, shower-singers to seasoned pros, no sheet-music-reading required. \*\*\* We usually meet on the second Sunday of the month, and will continue to meet in-person as long as it makes sense. We encourage and provide masks. We will also plan on continuing our Zoom circles from time to time. So please check the day before/day of the meetup each month to confirm date & details. This world needs more song; join in the fun, and be the music you want to hear in the world. Hope to see you there! \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ L❤️ving this? Donate! : ) Your donations help keep our mission alive! We love doing this with you. Thank you to all who support us. Suggested donation is $15-20. Please include "VX" in the memo/notes! Via paypal: [ParisKern@comcast.net](https://paypal.me/Pariskern) Via Venmo: [@Pariskern](https://account.venmo.com/u/Pariskern) Check? Email: [ParisKern@comcast.net](mailto:ParisKern@comcast.net) IMAGE RIGHTS: We may take pictures and record videos of our in-person events, and record our Zoom meetings online. This material will be available for us to use to publicize upcoming circles and workshops and performances. By attending our events, you are agreeing with the image rights agreement. \~\~

**THE POWER OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS OVER YOU** You are welcome to arrive 15 minutes early for refreshments! At the lecture "The Power of the Subconscious", the speaker will clearly and understandably explain topics such as: What is the exact definition of the Subconscious Mind? How does it inflict unwanted feelings and anxiety in you? What determines how much pressure it exerts on a person? What exactly is the goal of the subconscious? This is not just a lecture where you sit quietly and listen. It's interactive and LIVE, so you can ask questions at any time. And the most important topic: **HOW DO YOU TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR SUBCOUNSCIOUS!** This group is sponsored by the Dianetics Life Improvement Center.

I was so burned by Ready Player One that I don't even want to give Spielberg a chance (Emily: What is up with that dress?) but Josh O'Connor won me over in Wake Up Dead Man, so we're including it in this month's marathon run. Your host will be in E8. Let's get food afterwards.

Every Sunday afternoon before church, one of the Covenant Life Church prophetess' hosts a prophetic training class that activates participants in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. During this class, participants will be provided opportunity to be taught how to use the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and will have opportunity to ask questions and talk with someone who has been used in the Gifts during ministry. Teaching is provided on the gifts with emphasis on the Gift of the Prophecy. A combination of lecture and experiential learning is employed to teach, guide and instruct the participants. Everyone is welcome, all classes are free. Childcare is not provided.

*Root* is a game of woodland might and right. Stalk the woods as one of the Vagabonds, seize the initiative with the Eyrie birds of prey, rule over your subjects as the Marquise de Cat, or command the Woodland Alliance to create a new order. With creatures and cunning, you'll rule a fantastic forest kingdom in the ultimate asymmetric board game of adventure and war.

**Advance ticket sales have ended but plenty of additional tickets remain available at the door.** [Profs and Pints Northern Virginia](https://www.profsandpints.com/washingtondc) presents: **“Lafayette’s Long Fight for Liberty,”** a look at the life, struggles, and legacy of America’s favorite fighting Frenchman, with Richard Bell, professor of history at the University of Maryland and author of *The American Revolution and the Fate of the World.* [Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at [https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-lafayette](https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-lafayette) .] When the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States in 1824, Americans greeted him with a frenzy of affection unmatched by anything the nation had ever shown a single individual. Crowds filled streets, towns held ceremonies in his honor, Congress showered him with gifts, and parents named children for the French aristocrat who had helped win the American Revolution. Explore the extraordinary life behind that adulation with historian Richard Bell, whose excellent past talks have earned him a big following among Profs and Pints fans. Professor Bell will take Lafayette far beyond his familiar role as George Washington’s young protégé and the hero of Yorktown. You’ll learn how Lafayette became one of the Atlantic world’s most persistent champions of liberty—fighting for constitutional government, religious freedom, prison reform, press freedom, antislavery, and independence movements from Greece to Poland. You’ll also hear how Lafayette’s ideals repeatedly put him in danger, making him a target of kings, radicals, imperial powers, and revolutionaries who regarded him as “the most dangerous man of all.” Professor Bell will show how Lafayette’s life was full of contradictions: a nobleman who challenged aristocratic privilege, a centrist caught between monarchy and mob rule, an antislavery advocate whose efforts fell short, and a dreamer whose causes often failed in his lifetime. Yet Lafayette never stopped trying to make liberty universal. Come learn why Lafayette’s name still graces hundreds of American towns, parks, counties, schools, rivers, and lakes—and why his most important monument might be not any statue or place name, but the freedoms he helped generations of people imagine, demand, and defend. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.) Image: From an 1834 portrait of Lieutenant General Lafayette painted by Joseph-Désiré Court (Palace of Versailles / Wikimedia).

**\*TO ATTEND GET TICKET At** [https://www.socialevents123.com/event-details.aspx?id=13508#tix](https://www.socialevents123.com/event-details.aspx?id=13508#tix) (Multiple Meetup groups are co-organizing so the RSVP's shown are just a very small portion attending. We'll have at least 20 registered.) Our last online Bingo Night Party was such a BIG hit, we're doing it again! Do you like to play BINGO or want to just do something different?! Then you will LOVE this event! Here is your opportunity to have some fun playing our Live "Bingo" game. You will also get to socialize and make other friends from the comfort of your home. Prizes included Amazon gift cards, free future events and more! This completely online event will be LIVE and you will be able to see and hear the other participants while playing. You will either need to print or draw out your bingo cards. We will email you with how to get it after registering. You can have more than 1 person on your team as long as they're from your house and use same device. Friends/family around the country can also play. They would just need to also register for a ticket. This event will be held on Zoom which you would access through your computer/webcam, or via your phone/tablet. On day of the event, you will get a secured Zoom link and link to print out Bingo cards. \*RSVPS ON HERE ARE NOT REFLECTIVE OF ACTUAL ATTENDANCE as this is a multi group event. Cost: $15-$20 depending on how early you register. **\*TO ATTEND GET TICKET AT -** [https://www.socialevents123.com/event-details.aspx?id=13508#tix](https://www.socialevents123.com/event-details.aspx?id=13508#tix)

This is the sign you've been waiting for. Come write with us Sunday at 7:30 am at Kaldi's Social House in Arlington. Kaldi's opens at 7. Grab a coffee and join the group! We generally have 10 to 14 writers attend each week, and new folks are welcome to drop in anytime. Intros start at 7:30 am. We will write for one hour. After writing, feel free to debrief, share thoughts or get advice. Our meetups are a safe space for writers to work on their craft. No one will read or critique your writing. Kaldi's Social House website: https://www.kaldissocialhouse.net/ \* Resource \* Many thanks to Justin for putting together a shared file of resource discussed at the meetings. Feel free to add to it! [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13LONNjZvsO5hEXM7NsBnWCgy3GgPgjAbQxE0lPxp7hc/edit?usp=sharing](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13LONNjZvsO5hEXM7NsBnWCgy3GgPgjAbQxE0lPxp7hc/edit?usp=sharing)

Join us to watch Last One For the Road at AFI Silver: Two middle-aged friends, who swear each drink is their last, cross paths with a shy architecture student and take him under their wing on a free-flowing bender through the Italian countryside. **Note: RSVPing here does not guarantee your spot for the event. You must purchase a 6;30pm ticket from AFI Silver: [https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100005579/](https://silver.afi.com/movies/detail/0100005579/)** (In Italian with English subtitles)

DC/DOX '26, the celebration of documentaries, is one of the best film festivals in the DMV. For four days - June 11-14 - the filmfest will explore a plethora of fascinating subjects. **See the whole schedule [here](https://dcdoxfest2026.eventive.org/schedule).** (The date of the film we're seeing is June 14 at 7pm - apologies for initial misprint.) For the ArtHouse, we'll see The Lorraine, the first feature-length documentary about the iconic Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, and its owners, Walter and Loree Bailey. A safe haven for African Americans traveling during segregation and Jim Crow laws in the United States, the Lorraine is most widely remembered for one horrific event: the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968, as he stood on the balcony outside Room 306. **Tickets cost $17 and can be purchased [here](https://dcdoxfest2026.eventive.org/schedule/69f10d0c6f84d223c7c571eb).** It will sell out, I believe. Woolly Mammoth Theater is a great venue. We'll do something social probably before nearby. WAS JUST TOLD THAT THE DIRECTOR WILL BE THERE FOR A DISCUSSION AFTER. VERY COOL. Throughout his career, director Sam Pollard has received numerous awards and honors. In 1998, he was nominated for the Best Feature Documentary Academy Award for *4 Little Girls* with Spike Lee. He won a Peabody Award for *When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts* in 2006 and received three Emmy Awards between 2007 and 2010. He also received the International Documentary Association’s Avid Excellence in Editing Award in 2008 and their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020, followed by a Career Achievement Peabody Award in 2021. But the story of the Lorraine is far greater than that one tragic day. This documentary captures the astonishing and inspiring story of an enterprising Black couple’s pursuit of the American Dream, told through the voices of those who lived it. Their purchase of the motel in 1945 laid the foundation for a hub of social, political, and creative power, making the Lorraine a cradle of innovation and community-building. Civil rights demonstrations were planned there. Musical hits were written there. The film captures it all, including the Black community’s determined effort decades later to save the building, preserving both the history that unfolded there and the powerful symbolism it continues to embody.

Please provide your song suggestions for a Potluck jam. Asking participants to bring a dish, appetizer, dessert, or bevarages (or chip in $10). We'll have food and drinks after the jam. Use promo code Dish to avoid the fee if you plan to bring food or drinks. You can also rsvp on our new American Rockers site. https://www.americanrockers.org/book-online

Whether you've never done improv before, or you've done it for so long you were quoted in *Truth in Comedy*, or anywhere in between, come join us! Swing by *Gresso's* for the **Columbus Improv Comedy Meetup**! The idea behind improvised comedy is to create entire scenes from scratch. A suggestion is taken from the audience and laughter is built on the spot. This can be done in game form, like *Whose Line Is It Anyway, Make Some Noise,* or *Wild 'n Out*; it can also be done in a longer way, to tell a complicated story, like *TJ & Dave*. Our meetup, which is central Ohio's longest running (and FREE!) weekly comedy event, brings the games for you to play in a safe, supportive, and compassionate environment. Afterward, many members will hang out in *Gresso's* itself and get to know each other. Not only is this a lot of fun, but you get to work on thinking faster on your feet, your public speaking, plus it's an excellent way to meet new people and build relationships that will last a lifetime, and you do that while laughing your butt off! Ask yourself if you want to join the **Columbus Improv Comedy Meetup**, and say "*Yes, And*" that you'll have a blast!

Whether you've never done improv before, or you've done it for so long you were quoted in *Truth in Comedy*, or anywhere in between, come join us! Swing by *Gresso's* for the **Columbus Improv Comedy Meetup**! The idea behind improvised comedy is to create entire scenes from scratch. A suggestion is taken from the audience and laughter is built on the spot. This can be done in game form, like *Whose Line Is It Anyway, Make Some Noise,* or *Wild 'n Out*; it can also be done in a longer way, to tell a complicated story, like *TJ & Dave*. Our meetup, which is central Ohio's longest running (and FREE!) weekly comedy event, brings the games for you to play in a safe, supportive, and compassionate environment. Afterward, many members will hang out in *Gresso's* itself and get to know each other. Not only is this a lot of fun, but you get to work on thinking faster on your feet, your public speaking, plus it's an excellent way to meet new people and build relationships that will last a lifetime, and you do that while laughing your butt off! Ask yourself if you want to join the **Columbus Improv Comedy Meetup**, and say "*Yes, And*" that you'll have a blast!

Whether you've never done improv before, or you've done it for so long you were quoted in *Truth in Comedy*, or anywhere in between, come join us! Swing by *Gresso's* for the **Columbus Improv Comedy Meetup**! The idea behind improvised comedy is to create entire scenes from scratch. A suggestion is taken from the audience and laughter is built on the spot. This can be done in game form, like *Whose Line Is It Anyway, Make Some Noise,* or *Wild 'n Out*; it can also be done in a longer way, to tell a complicated story, like *TJ & Dave*. Our meetup, which is central Ohio's longest running (and FREE!) weekly comedy event, brings the games for you to play in a safe, supportive, and compassionate environment. Afterward, many members will hang out in *Gresso's* itself and get to know each other. Not only is this a lot of fun, but you get to work on thinking faster on your feet, your public speaking, plus it's an excellent way to meet new people and build relationships that will last a lifetime, and you do that while laughing your butt off! Ask yourself if you want to join the **Columbus Improv Comedy Meetup**, and say "*Yes, And*" that you'll have a blast!

Grab a drink or some food and get to know each other. This is our first event and we can take it slow. I’d love to meet everyone and hear if there’s anything you like to get out of the group. Looking forward to meeting you all!

Whether you've never done improv before, or you've done it for so long you were quoted in *Truth in Comedy*, or anywhere in between, come join us! Swing by *Gresso's* for the **Columbus Improv Comedy Meetup**! The idea behind improvised comedy is to create entire scenes from scratch. A suggestion is taken from the audience and laughter is built on the spot. This can be done in game form, like *Whose Line Is It Anyway, Make Some Noise,* or *Wild 'n Out*; it can also be done in a longer way, to tell a complicated story, like *TJ & Dave*. Our meetup, which is central Ohio's longest running (and FREE!) weekly comedy event, brings the games for you to play in a safe, supportive, and compassionate environment. Afterward, many members will hang out in *Gresso's* itself and get to know each other. Not only is this a lot of fun, but you get to work on thinking faster on your feet, your public speaking, plus it's an excellent way to meet new people and build relationships that will last a lifetime, and you do that while laughing your butt off! Ask yourself if you want to join the **Columbus Improv Comedy Meetup**, and say "*Yes, And*" that you'll have a blast!

The topic for June is "Roadtrip" Speak Easy: true stories, told live. The idea is simple: an audience, an open microphone, and great stories. Hilarious, gripping, poignant- it's up to you. Audiences are invited to come to listen or come to tell as folks from all corners of Columbus offer their stories live on stage! Held at Wild Goose Creative's warm, intimate space, this night of tales occurs on the 3rd Thursday of every month. Doors open at 6:30 pm, show starts at 7:00 pm. Please arrive early if you want to tell, as we generally only have room for a limited number of tellers, and the sign-up sheet has a tendency to fill up fast. Formed around the idea that people need stories--they're what hold and draw us together--SpeakEasy celebrates the strangeness and commonness of being human. And in a world of smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, and more . . . it gives people a real, breathing, in-person way to connect. The night is geared for true stories of all kinds, taking the best tales told around kitchen tables, in darkened pubs, on the street corner, and at late-night parties and giving them an audience. Speak Easy is also a great outlet for performers, writers, and artists looking to share their favorite stories and perfect their skills. We strongly encourage tellers to please tell the story rather than read it so we keep within the spirit of good storytelling and stay engaged with the audience. All are welcome. Hang around after the show for a drink and build community!

Do toxic people weigh you down? Affect your happiness? How can having toxic relationships affect your Health? And moreover, how can you spot them before it’s too late? Attend this in-person meeting to find out how to spot these people and remove their negative emotions from your life. This event is hosted by The Dianetics and Scientology Life Improvement Center in Central Ohio.