Where New Improv Takes Flight
In this very special edition of Launch Pad, we feature exciting new formats from two teams of senior Kinkonauts players.
- DreamToast: Cross Eyed: making dreams come true in this alternate version of the very popular dream logic show
- Improvised Weekly News: presenting our inaugural broadcast of news the mainstream media doesn’t want you to see!
Tickets only $5 at the door
To be or not to be – it is up to you! The Kinkonauts will trade in their jeans for Elizabethan short pants, and create an improvised Shakespeare play, on-the-spot based on an audience suggestion.
Featuring 9pm Late Show performances by: Duck Face and Con Artists
Stick around for the late show for free with your 8pm ticket!
Three improvisers take you on an intimate look at urban ennui through the use of characters, locations, and time. Mostly hilarious, sometimes touching, sometimes silly, sometimes honest, sometimes weird, this show always ventures to find the core of the human malaise.
Featuring opening act: Con Artists
Only $5 at the door subject to availability – or free with your ticket to the 8pm show!
Where new improv takes flight
Talented Kinkonauts players conquer new frontiers with experimental formats. Witness the boldest and the bravest test their mettle. Some will crash and burn. The mightiest will blast off and soar to new heights.
Our last Launch Pad of the year!
Tickets $5 at the door
Want a suitor who likes you for your brains? Be careful what you wish for. The Kinkonauts sharpen their wits and weapons in this improvised tale of regency romance and the roving undead. Jane Austen must be rolling over in her grave.
Featuring 9pm Late Show performances by: Con Artists and Necessary Elvis
Stick around for the late show for free with your 8pm ticket!
Student price $5 at the door with student ID.
The Con Artists are masters of misdirection, making things that shouldn’t seem to work – work! Be careful, because these creative hooligans will steal your heart and make you pay twofold in laughter!
Featuring opening act: Necessary Elvis
Only $5 at the door subject to availability – or free with your ticket to the 8pm show!
Please note the Quest Complete show previously at this time has been cancelled.
Three improv teams face off head-to-head in an intergalactic battle for your starry-eyed love – but only one can win! Your votes will determine the final victor of the season – leaving the other teams behind in their stardust.
Tickets $5 at the door
Gotta sing? Gotta dance? Then you gotta join us for a fully improvised musical show. Our Broadway Babies will get your heart racing so you’ll think you’re in La La Land. If you love the Sound of Music, and catch yourself Singin’ in the Rain, you won’t want to miss these improvisers and their super cool accompanist making up songs and stories and All That Jazz.
Musical accompanist: Kathy Zaborsky & guests
Featuring 9pm Late Show performances by: The Kinkonauts Conservatory and Improvised Weekly News
Stick around for the late show for free with your 8pm ticket!
Student price $5 at the door with student ID.
Tune into the fakest news team around! Is Mainstream Media hiding the truth? Join IWN (Improvised Weekly News) as our intrepid reporters dig into the real story behind the headlines. You can’t make this stuff up (or can you?)!
Featuring opening act: The Kinkonauts Conservatory
Only $5 at the door subject to availability – or free with your ticket to the 8pm show!
Reactor Improv Festival – Opening Show
Sparks fly as the Kinkonauts kickoff the 2019 Reactor Improv Festival. It’s a night of improv that’s sure to get a reaction. Featuring talented up-and-comers and hot performances from across our community:
- Heroine: Take a tour of your emotions with this firey female duo
- Mixer: The Kinkonauts stage becomes an experimental beaker with local community players mixing together to make improv chemistry!
- Duck Face: venture to the core of the human malaise with a team that’s been there and back again. Duck Face takes you on a hilarious, touching and sometimes weird journey through characters, time and space
Stick around for the 9pm show for free with your ticket to Catalyst!
Reactor Wednesday: Interweb-Inspired Improv
Cruise down the improvisation superhighway! The Kinkonauts present three trendy improv acts inspired by the best (and worst) the web has to offer.
- Are We Not Men: Improvisers brave the Wikipedia rabbithole, in a frantic journey for topics to inspire their scenes
- Humblebrag: Two oh-so-humble players compete to outdo each other with #humblebrags, performing scenes inspired by their understated bravado
- Group Chat: A cast of Gen Z players trade phones and improvise scenes based off real messages they’ve received, from terrible tinder lines to awkward chats with potential roommates. Watch these young adults cope with crushing debt by laughing about the absurdity of modern communication!
Tickets $5 at the door, or free with your ticket to the 7:30pm show.
Follow three formidable pairs of female improvisers across time and space. Featuring:
- High School Sex Appeal: Explore 90s culture, awkward moments, and maybe just maybe, take your glasses off and find true love right in front of you.
- The Double D Show: Two starlets in their twilight years perform a reunion show reminiscing about their road to stardom over the decades.
- All Request Heartache: An improvised love story inspired by your relationship song requests, from the good times, and the bad. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, or maybe you’ll cry from laughing so hard
Stick around for the 9pm show for free with your ticket to Broad Appeal!
Theatre so terrifying it can only be done without a scrypt. The Kinkonauts present an evening of three chilling tales:
- Vlad & Vicky: Does long-term commitment scare you? Our favourite vampires share love advice from centuries of undying bliss
- Screamy Linguine: The Lovecraft Twins bring us their latest improvised horror story
- Cracked Mirror: The Kinkonauts improvise the dark future in this parody of the Netflix phenomenon Black Mirror
Tickets $5 at the door, or free with your ticket to the 7:30pm show.
Reactor Festival Headline Act – Friday April 19
The Bloody Marys (Toronto) is improv comedy at its most delightful and most bloody. No doubt love will be found, followed immediately by a dead body. This award-winning comedy juggernaut is comprised of beloved weirdos and Second City Toronto Mainstage Alumni Leigh Cameron and Kirsten Rasmussen. Dark, physical, goofy and hilarious, you don’t wanna miss The Bloody Marys.
Featuring opening act: Casually Dope
Looking for a full night pass? See all three Friday shows for a great price! Quantities limited.
About The Bloody Marys
Beauty Love Truth combines live music and heartfelt improv. Performing scenes inspired by original songs, the improvisers bring new meaning to the lyrics through tales of heartbreak, happiness and hope.
Featuring guest musician Ann Taylor
Ann Taylor is a musician from the west coast currently living in Calgary. Ann fell in love with storytelling and words at a young age. Through poetry and song, Ann soon began her journey of composing music over the last eight years. Having written and produced several entrancing tracks and three albums, Ann has found a wonderful medium to be share her unique stories and perspectives on life, love and everything in between. Since releasing her first EP “Roses,” Ann has produced many works including her most recent EP “Murphy’s Law” and her most recent single “Waves.” In this solo performance, you’ll be treated to Taylor’s acoustic guitar, loop pedal and silky vocals.
An Improv Mixer of Epic Proportions
Bold and unpredictable pirates. Precise and calculating robots. Cunning and ingenious ninjas. Any good improv show should have all three. So we’ve brought them together in an improv mixer of epic proportions! Watch our all-star festival guests pair up with talented Kinkonauts in a quest for the ultimate improv scene!
Credit to Billy Merritt for the pirate robot ninja theory of improv.
Looking for a full night pass? See all three Friday shows for a great price! Quantities limited.
Reactor Festival Headline Act – Saturday, April 20
Casually Dope (Baltimore) is a unique troupe representing the underrepresented in improv. With their mix of high-energy, hip hop-inspired improv, they create characters you’ll never forget, and leave you as satisfied as your mama’s sweet potato pie. These powerful performers are committed to intersectional improv and use the stories of their community to make you laugh and create a show like no other. Casually Dope has appeared at the Black and Funny Festival (Minneapolis) and Combustion Festival (Toronto).
Cast: Blue Cavell-Allett, Ti Coleman, Rasheed Green, Jason Herbert, AJ McCombs & Harold Young
Featuring opening act: The Bloody Marys
Buy tickets to this show below or a click to get a full Saturday Festival Pass!
The 11 O’clock Number is an award winning improvised musical comedy from Edmonton! Based on suggestions from the audience, this triple-threat cast improvises an original musical story on the spot, complete with showstopping numbers that will leave you in stitches.
Cast: Byron Martin, Dallas Friesen, Katie Hudson and Cassie James with Curtis DenOtter on keys
♦ Official Selection New York Musical Improv Festival ♦ Best of Fest Calgary Fringe Festival ♦ Best Improv Show Victoria Fringe Festival ♦ Best Of Fest Orlando Sentinel
- Orlando Sentinel: “10 out of 10”
- Edmonton Journal: 4.5 stars “A near perfect hour long narrative”
- CBC: 4 stars: “Fabulous foolishness in five part harmony”
- Edmonton Journal (again): 4 stars “This show had me laughing uncontrollably”
Looking for a full night pass? See all three Saturday shows for a great price! Quantities limited.
Reactor Festival – Closing Show
Unscriptured (from Vancouver) is the completely improvised church service for a religion made up on the spot — all based on an audience suggestion. Winner of Pick of the Fringe at the 2018 Vancouver Fringe Festival as a solo show, now expanded to include music, guest preachers and a choir. Come sing, laugh, and pray together!
Cast: Travis Bernhardt and Kinkonauts guests
“Bernhardt is an intuitive and wildly talented performer. With Unscriptured, he eschews his usual stage magic to explore the enduring pull of collective spirituality with a spontaneously-created church service. And it’s BRILLIANT.” ★★★★★ –Melanie Tromp Hoover, Check The Program, Victoria
Looking for a full night pass? See all three Saturday shows for a great price! Quantities limited.