Underscoring the romance of the Valentine Holiday, W.I.G. Valentine Affair is presented by Howard Community College’s Arts Collective (AC) and its popular improv troupe, “What Improv Group?!?!” (W.I.G.), and the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo). The show features W.I.G.’s ground-breaking, edgy take on improvisation, complete with audience participation.
W.I.G. Valentine Affair will be performed on Thursday, February 15, 2018.
Howard Community College’s critically acclaimed Arts Collective engages performers, creatives, and audiences with innovative events that ignite our collective imaginations. For over two decades, Arts Collective has served as a creative cauldron, providing expert guidance and training to new and experienced artists in bringing vibrant life to diverse works on the stage; from the newly devised to the classics and all in between. Arts Collective’s positive, collaborative, educational environment is open to everyone. Join us in creating new heights of learning and possibility. Ignite your imagination!
AC’s What Improv Group?!?! (W.I.G.) began its on-stage journey in February 2009. Over the past seven years, W.I.G. has been about creating and exploring its unique underground take on improv and storytelling. W.I.G. not only performs at Howard Community College (shows, workshops, and seminars), but also off-campus. Previous off-campus gigs have included the Baltimore Improv Festival, Red Branch Theatre Company, Columbia Festival of the Arts, and the Howard County Theatre Festival. Most notably, W.I.G. partnered with Steppenwolf West (Los Angeles) from day one, hosting three summer intensives featuring instructors Alexandra Billings, Eric Hunicutt and Susan G. Kramer. This season, W.I.G. is pleased to continue its artistic partnerships with the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo) and Howard Community College’s Arts & Humanities Division.
Inspired by so many wildly gifted artists, S.G. Kramer birthed W.I.G.’s truly unique style of improvisational storytelling over eight years ago. Kramer and Daniel Johnston have worked side by side on W.I.G.’s vision since its inception (Kramer as W.I.G.’s coach/director and Johnston as performer as well as co-director). Together, along with countless stellar improv artists, they have created and cracked open the magic that is W.I.G.!
W.I.G.’s 2017-2018 CAST:
Nsikan Akpan, Gabrielle Amaro, Douglas Beatty, Makayla Beckles, Chania Hudson, Daniel Johnston, Emma McDonnell, Gavin Shown, Alex Stephanos…with Lauren Blake Williams!
W.I.G. CREATIVES:
Directed by: S.G. Kramer, Daniel Johnston
Creative Writing Coordination by: Tara Hart
Marketing Illustrations by: Emma K. McDonnell
Music Performed by: TBD
Stage Management by: Lacy Hall
Production Assistant: Alex Stephanos
The Howard County Poetry and Literature Society, known as HoCoPoLitSo, partnering with AC to present this year’s W.I.G. Valentine Affair, is a community not-for-profit literary arts organization committed to enlarging the audience for contemporary literature and the world literary heritage with live literary events with acclaimed writers. As an HCC community-partner-in-residence, HoCoPoLitSo looks forward to supporting the emergence of new voices when the page meets the improv stage. Tara Hart, Co-Chair of HoCoPoLitSo’s Board of Directors, is a professor and department chair of Humanities at Howard Community College. A winner of the Pushcart Prize for poetry, she helps students and alumni from HCC’s creative writing courses as well as local writers affiliated with HoCoPoLitSo share their knowledge of memoir, short fiction, and poetry through their passionate practice of these arts, in collaboration with their new creative partners at W.I.G.
W.I.G. Valentine Affair plays one night only, Thursday, February 15, 2018. The performance starts at 8 p.m. in the Rouse Company Foundation Student Services Building, Room 400, at HCC – 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, in Columbia Maryland. Running time is approximately two hours, with one intermission.
Tickets are $20 for general admission, $15 for seniors, faculty, staff and military, and $10 for students. The price of the ticket includes wine, coffee, and treats in a gorgeous cabaret.
To purchase tickets, call (443) 518-1500 or go online.
