Infinite Jest: Improvising in the Style of Shakespeare with Diana Brown

In this improv intensive we'll enter a world of wit, passion, and poetic play as we explore the art of improvising in the style of William Shakespeare.

In this one-day intensive, you’ll learn to create bold characters, heightened language, and sweeping stories that feel at home in the Elizabethan theatre.
Through a mix of exercises and scene work, you’ll discover how to speak in verse with confidence, craft dialogue rich with imagery and rhythm, and embody characters driven by love, ambition, and folly.
Along the way, you’ll practice Shakespeare’s favorite theatrical devices—disguise, mistaken identity, lovers’ quarrels, comic misunderstandings, and duels of wit or steel.
The day culminates in an ensemble performance, where you’ll weave these tools into improvised tales of romance, rivalry, and revelry.

No Shakespeare experience is required—only a playful spirit and a willingness to dive headfirst into the poetry of imagination.

Details

Date: Saturday, December 6, 2025

10 am - 4:30pm (with a 1 hour lunch break )

Student Showcase: 5:00PM

Registration: $85

Location: All Out Comedy Theater, 2550 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, CA 94612
*Please check your maps says Oakland. There's a duplicate address in Berkeley.

About the Instructor:

Diana Brown is an improv artist, teaching artist, actor, producer, director and voiceover talent. Diana was named one of The Improv Boosts Sudden Impact Teachers of 2025. She was voted Most Valuable Mentor and Teacher at the San Francisco Improv Festival.

In addition to leading the Improvised Shakespeare program at All Out Comedy, She leads the Improv Performance Lab program at Berkeley Rep’s School of Theatre. Diana is an instructor and a member of the leadership team with Leela Improv Theatre in San Francisco. She’s a guest teaching artist with BATS in San Francisco, is a teaching artist with Greater Than The Sum, bringing improv to corporate campuses.

Diana was an instructor for the 2025 Rise Comedy Summer Improv Intensive presenting Exploring Genre. She’s presented Improv workshops, intensives and “workshop to show” experiences at the Camp Improv Utopia West and Yosemite, Improv Fest Ireland, Belfast Improv Fest, SAVI FEST, The Unscripted Shakespeare Festival in NYC, Queen City Comedy Experience, Uptown Improv Festival, Vancouver Improv Festival, Tucson Comedy Arts Festival, Ocean State Improv Festival, Gather Spring Improv Retreat, Cornerstone Improv, Reno Improv, Countdown Improv Festival and others.

Diana is half of the duo Bingewatch, she plays in the Shakespeare inspired trio Gamesome Frolic, the Tennessee Williams inspired duo Fleeting Reminiscence, the trios POPTOP, Slumber Party, the duos Horrible People, DJ, Salt and Pepper, Davenport & Brown, and 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 festivals around the country and abroad.