The Upper-Midwest doesn’t havea a great improv scene; it has several. Chicago, Minneapolis, Madison & Detroit are each growing communities with their own style. Smack in the middle of that, Eau Claire, Wisconsin has been looking to grow into a nationally recognized community of its own, and it seems to be off to a great start with the help of people like Amber Dernbach and Elliot Heinz. What tarted as a single high school team back around the time of Jurassic Park and Crystal Pepsi, has now grown to a vibrant improv town. Eau Claire now has an improv festival all it’s own. We’re excited to have a new festival as part of the network and I was able to reach out with some questions for Amber – the festival’s lead coordinator so travelling improvisors could learn a little bit about their festival and maybe try to add it to their next round of visits.

Eau Claire is pretty new to the national improv scene. What’s the improv like there? You’re in a pretty unique place to be quite near Chicago and Madison which are strong longform and shortform cities, respectively. How do those play out in Eau Claire?

The improv scene here has been fostered at our Eau Claire Memorial High School, where alumni have then gone out with the goal of improvising in the nation. Since the beginning of the high school program in 1993, Eau Claire has rapidly learned to love and support the local improv scene. The adult teams in the area share a unique blend of short and long form improv, where you can see both in one performance. The Memorial improv program begins its season with short form, but always works towards the final goal of a long form performance at the end of the school year. A university has also finally emerged in the last few years, focusing only on short form. High school alumni often come back to Eau Claire after years of experience in places like Chicago or Minneapolis with incredible long form performances. The Eau Claire audience is beginning to get the hang of long form improv as more teams emerge and continue to push the scene as far as it can go.

Rick Andrews

We will have workshops available from Rick Andrews (NYC, Magnet Theater), individuals from Minneapolis, Chicago, and Eau Claire. Most of the festival is close enough together where it will be impossible not to meet everyone. This year we are offering a “home base” of sorts at a local improv household. Here teams are free to crash on the floor or a cot. The basement of this house has a small theater and will be available for teams to practice, warm-up, or jam with one another. We will have other housing options if teams wish not to be a part of the “home base” household.

When the festival isn’t going on, what other things are there to do in Eau Claire? What’s the best place to grab food near the festival? Are there any historic sites or interesting places to visit nearby?

Accessible, affordable, park-like Eau Claire can be a winter wonderland in December. We have several parks that folks can walk through, antique shops for gazing, several eateries for grazing. The Leine’s Lodge is just a short drive away in Chippewa Falls, WI where adults can tour the brewery and have a few drinks as well. Grab a cup of coffee at Racy’s, breakfast at the Nucleus on Water St. or the Grand Ave Café on Grand St., lunch at the Acoustic Café, dinner at Tokyo Japanese Restaurant or Shanghai Cuisine. Eau Claire is full of cozy shops and café’s, all within 10 minutes of one another.

Lazy Monk

• Rivers
• Bike trails
• Egg Roll Plus
• Pad Thai (restaurant)
• Lazy Monk Brewery
• Banbury Place, independent artist studios in former tire plant.
• Joynt, scooters
• Galloway Grill
• V1 Local Store
• Public Library
• Antique shop
• UWEC Jazz
• Vibrant downtown music scene
• Strong local ethnic communities, primarily Hmong and Mexican.

This is your second year. What inspired you to put on a festival last year? What did you learn from that and hope to make even better this year? You’re surrounded by many improv cities, what are your hopes for making Eau Claire something special?

I decided to organize ECIF because there is an increasing improv scene in Eau Claire. What started as a near cult-level high school improv scene has spilled into a local adult scene. So many Memorial High Improv graduates have continued to be working improvisers around the region. Its important to celebrate this history and continue to develop local talent by offering accessibility to visiting national artists. What I learned from that first festival is that people in Eau Claire want more improv! Six hundred people attended a show or took a workshop last year. That level of support for a first year festival, run out of my kitchen between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., spurred me to continue a second year. Eau Claire is special. We nurture our local artists and stay connected to those who started here.

I hope that we are able to offer shows to a wider audience this year and make improv a conversation topic for citizens everywhere. We want people to crave more improv in the community! We already have a thriving music scene, so we believe that improv can succeed just as well.

Anything else you’d like people to know about the festival?

Eau Claire is such a neat town and a place that you may not expect to find in Wisconsin. We experience every season here, Which allows us all to adapt to situations without hesitation. The scene here is young, but our community is very supportive with nightly crowds anywhere from 200-600 in the audience during the festival. Friends are made here and connections stay strong.

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The festival is taking submissions right now. Feel free to submit or drop Elliot any questions on his profile or in the comments below.