Instructors

David Razowsky is the author of the best-seller "A Subversive’s Guide to Improvisation: Moving Beyond 'Yes, And.'” With ten revues at Chicago's Second City alongside stars like Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert and a decade as Artistic Director of The Second City Hollywood, he has led numerous workshops globally and delivered a TEDx Talk titled “Life: The Product is the Process.”

David emphasizes that present awareness is all you need to create compelling and innovative scenes, requiring no games, preconceived ideas, or ego. You don’t need prior improvisation experience—just bring your current presence to his workshops, and you'll leave with joy, excitement, and confidence. What more could you want?

Tony Rielage is DIF’s Festival Director and the Artistic Director/Head Instructor at Theatre Momentum. He has been performing, directing, and producing improv theatre since 1992, with the past 15 years focused entirely on dramatic/grounded improv. He has trained at iO Theater, the Annoyance Theatre, and the Playground Theater, and founded TM’s predecessor workshop, Workshop-in-Progress. His training style centers around an outside-in approach focused on neurology and psychology, leading to improv about vulnerable human beings acting naturally, bravely, and honestly.

Kathy Rinaldi is a member of ImprompTwo, a duo that has been performing unscripted theatre at festivals around the world for the past seven years. Both Kathy and Joe (her duo partner) have extensive backgrounds in professional theatre, both on and offstage, and bring those sensibilities to their performances and teaching.

Michael J Gellman teaches Master Workshops all over the world.  He is an alumnus of the Second City mainstage and was a resident director for Second City in Canada and the USA for 25 years. He was Artistic Director of the Second City Toronto where his shows were nominated for 7 Dora Mavor Moore Awards including twice for Outstanding Direction, nominated for Best Director for Chicago’s Joseph Jefferson Award, and won a Chalmers Award for Best Director. He was a senior faculty and founding member of the Second City Training Center where he was Program Head and also Director of the NY training Center. Michael was an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago teaching Acting For Directors in the Film Directing department and designed and taught Improvisation and Acting III for the Comedy Studies department. In addition to Second City and Columbia College he has taught and designed classes and workshops in directing, acting and improvisation since 1976 at such notable institutions as: Actors Centre London, The Audition Centre, Victory Gardens Training Centre, Act One Conservatory and Loyola Law School as well as master workshops for hundreds of Universities, festivals, theatre companies and Improv groups around the world. He is credited with originating “Long Form” Improvisation and his book “Process: An Improvisers Journey” (Northwestern University Press) co-authored with Mary Scruggs is a summary of his workshops on improvisational training.

Sarah Marie Curry has been a passionate coach, director, teacher and producer of improvisational theater since 2012. She is currently teaching advanced improv in three of the five dedicated improv schools in Austin: The Hideout Theatre, The Fallout Theater and Merlin Works School of Improvisation. She has been an actor since 2002 and an improvisational actor since 2008. On stage she has been called “hilarious” “fierce” “truly exceptional” and is an Austin Award winner for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy this past season. Her regional credits include: Reefer Madness (Mary Lane), Ordinary Days (Deb), Company (Jenny) Into the Woods (Cinderella) Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (Chorus) to name a few. On stage she has been called “hilarious”, “fierce” and “truly exceptional” and is the Outstanding Lead Actress in A Musical of 2016 for her role as “Jamie” in The Last Five Years. She was a proud member of the award winning troupe: Girls Girls Girls Improvised Musicals for 7.5 years and currently stars as one half of dramatic improv duo Cascade also nominated by the Austin Improv Community for Outstanding Improv Troupe.

Cat Drago is an Austin performer, teacher, award-winning director, and daytime pediatric nurse who is most known for her work at the Hideout Theatre. She has been performing scripted and improvised theater for over 20 years, and has taught improv to children and adults in and around Austin and the US. Her award-winning directorial projects include DIA DE LOS MUERTOS which was featured on the cover of the Austin Chronicle, and MAKE IT SO, her delightfully nerdy improvised play series inspired by Star Trek Next Generation. She was also featured in the cast of the award winning production of Nothing and Everything, improvised Anton Chekhov plays, and the cast of the 46 Hour Improv Marathon, which nearly broke her brain.

Jaime Rich and Randy Wight are seasoned presenters, trainers, and performers who specialize in harnessing the transformative power of improvisation to enhance communication, collaboration, and innovation. With over three decades of combined experience, they have worked with a wide range of audiences, from corporate teams to non-profit organizations, helping individuals and groups break through communication barriers, foster creativity, and build trust.

As co-founders of Spontaneous Mind, and through their roles Producing, Directing and Performing in Partners in Crime and ACT II Improv, Jaime and Randy have dedicated their careers to teaching and applying the principles of improv in practical, real-world settings. Drawing on their extensive backgrounds in leadership, stand-up comedy, corporate training, and wellness, they offer unique insights into how the art of "YES and" can transform both personal and professional relationships.

Their book, The Power of YES and Communication, outlines their approach to using improv as a dynamic tool to unlock potential, create openness, and strengthen connections in any team or organization. Together, they are passionate about driving positive change, fostering innovation, and helping teams communicate more effectively through the principles of improvisation.

Diana Brown is an improv artist, teaching artist, actor, producer, director and voiceover talent. She was voted Most Valuable Mentor and Teacher at the San Francisco Improv Festival. She leads the improv program at Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s School of Theatre. Diana is an instructor, producer and a member of the leadership team with Leela Improv Theatre in San Francisco. She uses applied improvisation in medical settings to improve patient/provider communication.

She’s presented Improv workshops, intensives and “workshop to show” experiences at the Improv Fest Ireland 2024, 2024 Queen City Comedy Experience, 2024 Uptown Improv Festival, 2024 Vancouver Improv Festival, the 2024 Tucson Comedy Arts Festival, 2024 Ocean State Improv Festival, inaugural SAVI Fest, 2024 Gather Spring Improv Retreat 2024, Cornerstone Improv, O-Town Improv festival, Countdown Improv Festival, Camp Improv Utopia West, 2023 Queen City Comedy Experience, IMPRIDE, Unscrewed Theatre, 2nd Best Comedy Fest, Denver Improv Festival, Vintage Improv Fest, Unscrewed Theater in Tucson, AZ, All Out Comedy Theater in Oakland, CA, Sealevel, San Francisco, CA, and Phoenix Theater, San Francisco, CA. Diana enjoys helping improv artists to find and amplify their unique gifts. She genuinely believes everyone is infinitely fascinating and endeavors to instill that belief in her students.

Diana is half of the duo Bingewatch, she plays in the Tennessee Williams inspired duo Fleeting Reminiscence, Diana plays in the Shakespeare inspired trio Gamesome Frolic, the trios POPTOP, The Witches, the duos Horrible People, DJ, Secret Lives of Villains, Salt and Pepper, and Davenport & Brown, and appears with the Twilight Zone inspired ensemble But of Mind.

Diana is a guest artist with BATS Improv in San Francisco and a member of the acting pool with the San Francisco sketch comedy company Killing My Lobster. She has appeared at the Vancouver Improv Festival, Uptown Improv Festival, Improv Fest Ireland, Gather Spring Improv Retreat, Rise Comedy Fest, SF Sketchfest, The Queen City Comedy Experience, San Francisco Improv Fest, Improvaganza Hawaii Festival of Improv, San Diego Improv Fest, O-Town Improv Fest, New York Improv Festival, Vintage Improv Fest, 2nd Best Comedy Fest, New Orleans Improv Fest, Twin Cities Improv Fest, Alaska State Improv Fest, Tucson Comedy Arts Fest and others. Diana appears in scripted theater productions including Playground Solo Fest 2025, Spoleto Festival, and at theaters and theatre festivals around the country.

Heather Marie Vitale (she/they) is a Chicago-based improviser, actor, writer, and teaching artist. She has studied at the Washington Improv Theater (where she was a faculty member for seven years), Second City Conservatory, the Annoyance, Magnet Theater, WGIS, Acting Studio Chicago, and the Vagabond School. She has performed improv and sketch across the country, and can be seen on stage most weeks in Chicago. As a performer, Heather Marie embraces the joy of collaboration and connection, and as a teacher endeavors to share that joy with her students.

Nina Castillo-D'Angier (she/they/siya) is a literal world-builder who makes and holds space to safely explore vulnerability through production design; interactive immersion; and the art of ritual griefwork. Moonlighting as Nina Nightingale, she is one of fewer than 100 silhouette portrait artists in the world and daylights as a professor for The Theatre School at DePaul University. Their multidisciplinary, diasporic work as a queer Filipinx-American is informed by a desire to indulge curiosity and bring mindful connection to everyday interactions, whether that be with strangers, objects, or the many things that we consider familiar.

Maren Rosenberg (she/her) is a Chicago-based actor, creative producer, and immersive experience designer, as well as proud co-owner of Bookclub: one of the first licensed Gen Z and Millennial black-, queer-, and women-owned performing arts venues in the country. She is the former co-artistic director of Uprising Theater: an innovative arts non-profit that amplifies marginalized voices, especially the people of Palestine. She is honored to serve as Board President of the Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce.  Her most recent performances include playing Bonnie in DRAMA’s music video As I Am and appearing in her one woman show The Olive Tree at LinksHall and Center on Halsted.

Ben St. John is a product of the Chicago Comedy and Theater scene. Earning his BA in Theater at Columbia College Chicago. He has been performing and teaching for 15 years. Ben has created, directed and produced numerous comedic and dramatic shows at Second City, Laugh Out Loud, Theatre Momentum, First Coast Comedy and Third Space Improv. He currently resides in Jacksonville, Florida and enjoys traveling and playing basketball with other old people.

Megan Sherrod is an improviser and coach based in New York City, where she performs regularly with Armory house team True Facts, as well as indie teams Improv Dot Gov and Night Shift. Before moving to New York, Megan was an active performer, teacher, and director in Austin's improv scene, particularly at the Hideout Theatre. She was also a founding member of the award-winning musical improv team Rook, which performed at festivals such as Out of Bounds, the West Coast Musical Improv Festival, and the Dallas Comedy Festival. Megan has taught workshops across the U.S. and internationally, from Oklahoma to New Zealand. Whether she’s leaning into the silly or diving into grounded genre work, Megan brings heart, humor, and a deep love of collaborative storytelling to every project.

Latanya (Tanya) Morgan is Philly based actor, writer, director, teaching artist, improv performer, acting/improv coach and instructor, applied improv corporate trainer and owner/operator of Sawubona Creativity Project Theatre. Tanya began her career acting on stage, in films and commercials more than 20 years ago. Tanya performs improv monthly with indie improv teams: The NCrowd, NYTEShift, No Diggity and Not Yet Rated. Tanya also continues to act in stage plays and in commercials whenever she can. Her latest performance was in the highly acclaimed production of Hollywood, Nebraska at South Camden Theatre Company.

Joy Carletti (she/her) fell into improv a couple decades ago and never looked back. She's trained from coast to coast (literally, from Improv Asylum to Second City to the Hideout to BATS) and has been a guest artist with ImprovBoston, Made Up Theatre, Phamaly Theatre, and Un-Scripted Theater Company, among others. Joy was the founder of Pure Moxie Players, a Bay Area home for narrative improv. After moving to Denver, she served as the director for Bent Improv and Education Director at Voodoo Comedy Playhouse before co-founding What If Theatre with her husband, Colin Iago McCarthy. She particularly loves improv that celebrates authenticity and believes in bringing your whole self to the stage. 

Karla Dingle (she/her) has spent her life on the stage. She began taking theater classes at age 5 and continued to study acting until receiving her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Georgia in Theater in 1998. Karla began performing improv in Charlotte in 2009 and continues to educate herself through workshops and classes at Second City, Hoopla, The Groundlings and more. Currently, Karla is the Education Director and an Instructor at Queen City Comedy in Charlotte, NC in the US. She is also the Improv Director and an Acting Instructor at a local studio in Charlotte, NC. You can see her performing with Now are the Foxes Improv Comedy, Close Distance Improv, and British American Experience.

Karla’s passion besides performing is teaching and coaching. She focuses on the intersection between acting and improvisation (including dramatic improv), and on using traditional acting tools and techniques to enhance the skills and performances in both actors and improvisers. Over the last several years, Karla has instructed students from Peru, Israel, India, Canada, Japan, Europe, South Africa, the Philippines and beyond. In addition, she has been a guest instructor at the Improv Fest Ireland, Vintage Improv Festival in Boston, Highwire Improv in Baltimore, The Nursery in London, Virtual Hug Improv in Manila, Liverpool Comedy Improv and the Bangalore Improv Community. Most recently, Karla was selected as a 2023 Theater IDA Artist in Residency in Zurich, Switzerland.

Karla’s students can be seen in feature films for Netflix and Amazon Prime as well as television series and voiceover work. Additionally, her students have been featured in commercial campaigns for CVS, Lending Tree, Food Lion, Atrium Healthcare and more.

Marc Majcher has been performing, directing, and teaching improvised theater in Austin, TX and around the world since 2005. He originally staged The Black Vault: Improvised Lovecraftian Horror at the Hideout Theater in 2012, and has remounted it again with an entirely new cast in 2019. Marc also designs theatrical games, aiming to combine improv, larp, immersive theater, and everything else into experiences like no other.

Originally (and back) in Chicago, Shaun Landry is a known actor, producer, writer and improviser nationally and internationally. She is currently the curator of The Robinhood International Improv Festival 2025 in Nottingham England.

Other noted credit includes founder of The Ledge Theatre in Los Angeles, which did improvisation, sketch, poetry, and storytelling and was more geared specifically to diversity in theater. She was a member of The Second City Chicago, Geese Theatre Company (drama therapy in prisons and penitentiaries), and Co-Founded The San Francisco Improv Festival.

She performs with improv and life partner Hans Summers as Landry & Summers. As a SAG Actor, she can be seen in the movies Milk, Read You Like A Book, and various independent movies. She can be read in the book Whose Improv Is It Anyway? Beyond The Second City about diversity in improvisational theater.

She is thrilled to be living back in Chicago and performing/teaching at The Dramatic Improv Festival.

Oliver is passionate about unscripted theatre and the cross-section that exists between acting and improvisation. He runs SODA Impro through which he produces Played Out, a three-act unscripted play with an emphasis on slow character-driven scenes, and Cap or No Cap, a panel show bringing together Toronto comedians of all disciplines. Current regular collaborators include Lara Johnson, Naomi Snieckus, Matt Baram, and Reid Janisse. He is a faculty member at The Assembly Improv in Toronto and coaches troupes independently. Previous specialty course offerings in Toronto, Detroit, and Los Angeles include: Viewpoints, Mindfulness, and Meisner for the Actor-Improviser; Impulse, Insight, and Emotion; The Game In Narrative; and Intro to Viewpoints for Improvisation.

The long-awaited Vampire Zombies... From Space!, a 1950s horror-comedy homage starring Oliver as a chain-smoking greaser heartthrob, is currently racking up awards around the world in the genre film festival circuit. He's delighted to have worked so closely with Bygone Theatre in the past few years on live stage productions of The Rear Window, The Birds, and Wayne & Shuster, Live! He also helped develop the roles of Edwin in Kristen Da Silva's The Bluff (Theatre Orangeville) and Mr. Gordon in Vishesh Abeyratne's workshop of Blood Offering (Alma Matter Productions). Oliver has become a regular headlining act for the past few years at the Detroit Improv Festival. He's an alumnus of Second City Toronto House Co, and can be found sporting a horrible pseudo-Irish accent in the Canadian Podcast Award-winning series Caverns & Comedians.

Michael J. Astrauskas is an improvisor based in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States. He has studied at Endgames Improv, Camp Improv Utopia, at festivals, with visiting teachers, and many more places. He loves to take photos, and can be seen capturing moments at Bay Area festivals and shows, as well as officially for Leela Improv in San Francisco. Michael loves to share his joy of improv, and that has led to production of shows and the San Francisco Improv Festival, as well as teaching. His philosophy is that improv can be for fun, a tool for life, or any combination.

Ben is a teacher and performer from Chicago, now based out of New Zealand, where he founded and runs Improv Connection theatre, which as trained hundreds of students in his unique hybrid method. He started his training at The Second City in 1994, trained and performed at Improv Olympic (now iO) and The Playground in the early 2000s, and at UCB in NYC shortly thereafter.

He now performs with long form improv duo Doom & Bloom which was a finalist in the World Wide Comedy awards, short form group The Improvisors, and online duo show Gen V. He's hosted workshops throughout Australia and New Zealand.  Ben's passion lies in discovering the hidden genius of each player, and watching their magic journeys unfold, for both players and audiences alike.