Laugh Passers is the legendary training ground for tyrants, warlords, juntas and strongmen with a passion for Improv. Our instructors use scenework and group exercise to teach students how to rule without mercy in the moment. Courses run a minimum of three weeks.
Improv for Beginners
This class teaches the basics of scenework. Students will learn how to reshuffle cabinets, launch full investigations and use obscure indigenous populations as patsies. Successful completion of this class will occur when students intimate that their failure to graduate may result in a breach of civil order in their country.
Characters Not Caricatures
Here, we educate students about the dividing line between “acceptable risk” and “narco-terrorist.” Instruction includes: the value of an English tailor, which scotch journalists prefer, and how to appear in a photo with a woman.
Mime
Students will learn to communicate with an international audience via body language. Exercises will include shaking hands with the poor, speaking before the U.N. and laughing off concerns of a currency run. This class will culminate with a mock state visit to a major power and an expression of deep admiration for its founders’ principles.
Long-Form Improv
Group work and an exchange of ideas and military hardware are the focus in this class. Instructors will work with students and their armies on which way to point a rifle and what to do in case a war breaks out. Students will practice signing treaties with neighboring powers and delivering an acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Master Class: Late Night Television
Students will learn to negotiate up to the last minute over what is and what is not off limits for the host to discuss. The class will culminate with a mock interview on a late-night show T.B.D. Students will be expected to force jokes on topics such as “Men drive one way, women sit in the back another” and “Michael Caine declaring martial law might sound a little something like this.”
Prerequisite: Characters Not Caricatures
Workshops
Even the experienced performer must learn that all the support in the world cannot make up for unpopular family members and a speaking style the foreign press describes as “suffocating” and “all over the place.” Our workshops are designed to help support a crumbling power base without that support winding up in a bank in Zurich.
Packet Writing
Instruction in the art of writing diplomatic cables should be of paramount concern for all performers. This class will help polish students’ writing, so as to make the occasional WikiLeaks document dump less scrutable.
Drop-In Classes
Students who feel they are losing control of their scene may wish to drop in and explain to instructors just what the hell is going on. Numerous Improv exercises will be suggested to help re-introduce performers to their craft. However, students tend to stick to the same three: “Crisis Situation”, “Questions Only” and “Famous Last Words”.
Advanced Improv
Students will learn how to hold on to power long enough to pry the gold fixtures off their bathroom sinks.