AndAlso Improv is opening a space in the heart of Brighton. With four studios, an office, podcast facilities and a black box theatre*, we are creating a mini arts centre right in North Laine. A home for Brighton’s improv community, and a resource for Brighton’s other creatives, this venue will help AndAlso to do big things, locally and internationally. Can you help us get started?

*Hopefully. We are still working out the details, but it is looking good. 

A bit about improvisation

Famous from ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’, Saturday Night Live and, more recently, the Olivier-winning Showstoppers and Chortle-winning Austentatious, improv just means a performance where you don’t know what is going to happen. It can be theatre, comedy, storytelling, dance, music or sketch. Some people do it to gain confidence, some to be calm under pressure, and lots of people just because it is good fun. It’s yoga for the brain. Mindfulness for show-offs. Creativity for the uncreative. We love improv and love sharing it. This building will help us to share it with the people of Brighton, Sussex and beyond.

One of our rewards: The Map of Improv Treasures by Helen Cann

The future

Our new training centre is our next step. AndAlso is one of the UK’s largest improv schools outside of London. We have a hundred Brighton students per term and almost as many online. But we aim to double that in the next year and broaden our offering as we do. Here are some of the things we are planning:

• Shows and jams: Our improv jams will be a place for our students to meet and play. Our shows will be a training ground for the next wave of performers, as well as a place for new folks to discover improv, or just have a great night out. ETA: Early 2024
• Online training: Most of our online classes are for advanced improvisers, but we plan to change that. We are currently working on a training programme for new improvisers. ETA: Early 2025
• Improv for teens: Don't you wish you had discovered improv earlier? Starting in Brighton, we will be creating a new programme to let people do just that. Start 'em early. ETA: 2025
• A Brighton Improv Festival: An idea well over a decade in the making. We have connections with improvisers worldwide and can’t wait to bring them to the South Coast for a week of workshops, shows and vegan fish and chips. ETA: 2025
• A retreat centre: We run three retreats a year, from small and luxurious to the juggernaut that is the Mayday’s Improv Retreat. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had our own space for all that? ETA: The right time

Some history

AndAlso is a young company, but it is also the continuation of two decades of local and international improv history. AndAlso was born out of the Maydays, Brighton’s longest-running improv group, established by John Cremer in 2014. With shows including ‘Guest Who’, ‘Confessions’ and ‘Happily Never After’, the Maydays were pioneers of UK longform improvisation. Their long-running residency at the Komedia has been the base from which they have toured the world. AndAlso was created last year to bring together the Maydays’ improv classes in Brighton and the online classes we (Heather and Jules) started running during the pandemic. We are very proud to be continuing the Maydays’ work.

The business

AndAlso is run by Heather Urquhart and Jules Munns, two of the UK’s most experienced improvisers and improv teachers. With our Brighton teachers Liz Peters, Jen Rowe, Jenny Haufek and Joe Samuel, (plus new trainees on the way) we put on classes and applied training. Our improv is influenced by the work of the iO theatre, Improv Boston and freeform, Mico Pugliares and the rest of Teatribu, David Razowsky, Jill Bernard, PGraph (and the Hideout Theatre), La Carpe Haute and many other teachers and performers we have met on our travels. 

Our teaching faculty is backed up by our manager, Lel Daniels and our Business strategist Richard Bradford, both of whom have decades of experience building the robust and resilient systems needed to manage arts and education companies.

One of our rewards: 'I brought a brick' t-shirt, by Holly Monger

Where we are

We are in the last stages of negotiation with the landlord of 12-14 Church Street, Brighton for a ten-year lease starting in autumn 2024. When the lease is signed, we will immediately lock in dates with our builders and start to advertise our rooms for hire. Flexible hire terms on our current teaching spaces mean we will be able to move our classes to Church Street very quickly. Brighton has very few affordable spaces, so we expect hiring the space to be fairly easy, especially with all of our local connections.

What your money will buy

You can do improv in any old room, but we want to do it right. Some of it may not be sexy, but a well-equipped studio can make all the difference. So this is where your money will go:

• Lighting and sound equipment (£5K)
• The demolition and rebuilding of walls (£20K)
• Soundproofing, lighting and dance floors (£5K)
• Chairs, tables, sofas and other furniture (£3K)
• Paint and signage (£1K)
• Promotion and marketing (£2K)
• Solicitor, license and other fees (£4K)

The wider financial picture

You might have noticed that the above costs add up to a lot more than the £20K we are asking for in this campaign. The money which we do not earn here we can borrow and repay over the first few years of the venue being open. Our projections predict that the venue will consistently make (a small amount of) money, but the more of that we can use to invest in our shows, performers and community, the better. If we make more than the £20K, it just frees us up to do more good and help more people. 

The risks

Too much too soon - As with many improvisers, sometimes our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. With the expansion of AndAlso, we must expand at a sustainable rate, bedding projects in before we add new ones. 

Cost of living crisis - Although our courses are priced as a premium product, we have generous concessionary and scholarship schemes. As a business, we also have a variety of different revenue streams to draw on. 

Low student sign-ups - Up to this point, most of our sign-ups have been through word of mouth and recommendation. While it is wonderful how successful this has been, we want more. The location, promotion budget and shows will all help with this.