7 June, 2025

Anything could happen! Improv season at The Vic promises unscripted high jinks

Laughs aplenty… The Mischief Company founder Claire Kelso (left) with troupe member Tresna Hunt, who lives in Devonport

Improv is coming to The Vic, with a lively series of Friday-night shows planned by a theatre group including four North Shore members.
Among them is Devonport resident Tresna Hunt, who says: “The whole ethos is to bring joy and laughter.”
She enjoys the fun of participating and found herself hooked on improv about six years ago after taking drama classes.
The Mischief Company founder Claire Kelso – who has a background as a professional actor in London and a long track-record of staging Theatresports – says she saw a gap in the local market. “There’s very little comedy in fact on the Shore.”
After Hunt approached The Vic theatre manager Philipp Jaser about using the venue and received an enthusiastic response, Kelso decided to relocate the company’s occasional shows from the city side of the harbour for a trial season.
Starting tonight (6 June) shows will run on every Friday night other than 20 June through to 1 August. A show called Potluck (described as a live improvised comedy soap opera) runs for the first four weeks, while Fizz (Bold colours. Bolder comedy!) fills the second half of the season.
Actors will depict improvised scenarios, including relationship pairings suggested by audience members, in fast-paced hour-long shows split into rounds. “The audience can come up with quite wacky things,” says Kelso.
The cast have to grapple with anything from challenging pairings to suggestions of playing a pickpocket, a parachutist or a hypochondriac. Kelso promises attendees won’t be dragged reluctantly onto the stage.
She says improv these days is often most strongly associated with stand-up comedy, when audience members may be roasted, but it first became well-established in New Zealand in the 1990s when the more drama-based Theatresports was at its height. She toured it to schools through a group called Con Artists and used it in corporate settings.
The North Shore has a strong part in improv’s modern history in New Zealand, Kelso says, with the first Theatresports show held in New Zealand being put on at the PumpHouse in Takapuna in 1988.
It is the drama-based tradition, which still delivers plenty of laughs, that Kelso draws on.
Mischief company was set up around two and a half years ago, initially out of improv workshops she started to encourage women to give it a go.
“Men are assertive on stage and women needed a space to believe in themselves,” she explains.
The company is mixed, with its women members now footing it with confidence. The format of the shows was devised by group member Steve Robinson, with Steve Lyons.
Hunt, a psychologist, says people who know her professionally through her coaching, educating and mentoring work are sometimes surprised by her sideline, but she sees problem-solving parallels in improv.
“Tresna is a star actor,” says Kelso to Hunt’s embarrassment when they talk to the Flagstaff.
But the ability to observe, interact and communicate is doubtless a handy transferable trait.
For herself, Hunt says she loves the creativity of making stuff up with other people and interacting with the audience. “You freak out initially, but it’s so much fun.”
After living in Devonport for 16 years, Hunt, whose two adult sons went through Takapuna Grammar, says she is looking forward to fronting up at The Vic, in its intimate smaller theatre.
Mischief is considering workshops in Devonport, but first there is that local audience to hook. Kelso says the uninitiated will find it exciting. “Improv atttracts people who might not even know they’re at theatre,” she says.

• The Mischief Company at The Vic, Potluck (6, 13, 27 June and 4 July); and Fizz, (11, 18, 25 July and 1 August), all shows 8-9pm. Tickets at thevic.co.nz.