Florida Studio Theatre Kicks Off Winter 2013 Improv Season Tonight

Sarasota's original antidepressant is back and ready to bring on the laughter in 2013. Saturday nights at 8:30pm, FST Improv will create characters and sketches on the spot. Not even the performers know what to expect - until it happens. The comedy begins tonight, January 19th for the winter season in the Goldstein Cabaret.

FST's resident funny girl and Improv director Rebecca Hopkins, who also happens to be the Managing Director of the theatre, said "What originally drew me to improv back in the last century was the roughness of it. It was instant. I was drawn the idea that comedy happens everywhere. It is right in front of us every day - you just have to know how to look at things. I have done improv in parks, movie theatres, offices and parking lots, but my greatest joy has been performing on the Goldstein stage. There is nothing like working with 100 people every Saturday night to create a new show. That's what we do - instant new play development. We take the audience's seed of an idea, interpret it, twist it and reflect it back in a way that is surprisingly true and (hopefully) funny." Taking what is right in front of them in the form of audience suggestions, the element of the unknown makes every Improv show unique - and creates some exciting and hilarious moments onstage.

The FST Improv returning cast includes Adam Ratner, Christine Alexander, Tim Beasley, Angel M. Parker, Darryl Knapp, Steve Turrisi, Chris Friday, Catey Brennan, and Jim Prosser on the piano. This season will welcome special performer Jay Hopkins from Orlando's Jester Theater.

Jay Hopkins has been improvising, acting, directing and writing professionally since 1988. In 2004, with his wife Diana, he formed Jester Theater (Orlando's only professional all-comedy theatre company), where he has performed in or directed several shows over the company's eight seasons. These include A Tuna Christmas, Moonlight and Magnolias, Noises Off, the Southeast premiere of The Musical of Musicals: The Musical and most recently Almost, Maine. In 2008, Samuel French, Inc. published his play The Iliad, The Odyssey and All of Greek Mythology in 99 Minutes or Less which is currently being performed all around the US.