First of all, a warm welcome 👋 to the student and performer community of The Nursery. During your time studying or performing with us there are lots of ways to get involved and meet people outside of your class, course or team/ and we want everyone to be welcome to the party, from total beginners to seasoned professionals.
This handbook will tell you all you need to know about our online classes and events. It has lots of practical information about the classes and some important information about our code of conduct and crisis communications procedure. We hope that by giving you all of this you’ll feel confident to go off and have the maximum fun improvising with us.
The Nursery and The Maydays are separate organizations collaborating to run online improv classes in response to the COVID-19 lockdown. All online classes and socials are run in parallel and decisions made equally between organisations. Shows, jams, and panels, while open to all (whether or not you are taking a class) are run solely by The Nursery. Many staff and teachers work for both organisations and we understand that it can be a little confusing sometimes.
This document is a briefing before you take a class and a reference later on. If there is information which you feel to be missing, unclear or incorrect, please email [email protected] or [email protected].
Created as a festival of new, devised and improvised theatre in 2009, the Nursery has always been London based and has run classes and events at theatres including the Old Vic Tunnels. The Nursery is the company behind Slapdash International Improv Festival and before lockdown ran a series of Training Centre and theatre buildings in South and Central London, where it staged Nursery Originals - short-run shows with a theatrical focus. The Nursery is a charity, which means it is run by its executive directors with the oversight of a board of trustees.
Our online classes take place on Zoom. If you are not familiar, this is an easy and flexible programme that works very well for improv online.