WIT’s Guide to Pitches for the 2025/2026 Season

Greetings, Ottawa Improvisors!

We here at Wayward Improvised Theatre are planning our 2025/2026 season, and that includes our mainstages: multi-month runs of hour long shows with open auditions.  What mainstage shows will we do?

That’s where you come in!

We'd love to hear your pitches for improv shows!  We're looking for show ideas: what's the show concept and how does the show work?  If we accept your pitch, WIT will produce your show!

You can find the application form here (note: will open on Apr 21 at midnight) and some old sample pitch decks (from Peter) here and here.

Let's set you up for success by talking about what WIT is looking for.

1. We love pitches that appeal to general audiences.

WIT's goal is to put on shows that non-improvisors will come and see.  So: if you give a one-sentence summary of your show to a non-improvisor, and that person wants to see your show?  That's a good sign.  If your summary is more like "it's a modified Harold where the group games are replaced by 'Bippity Bippity Bop'"... that's a harder sell to a general audience.  We're looking for (1) concepts that are easy for a non-improvisor to understand, which (2) immediately spark that non-improvisor's interest.

2. We love theatrical shows.

We do big productions.  Our mainstages are hourlong shows with a cast size anywhere from six to twelve people.  They happen at a theatre, and they use our considerable resources for tech, including lights, sound, projection, set design, costumes.  We love it when a pitch matches that level of ambition.  If the show concept is "fifteen minutes of three people playing Convergence", that may not be a good match for our resources.  But if you've got something in mind that uses the tools available to us in the theatre, then we're on the right track.

3. We love expanding the boundaries of improv as an art form.

Every good mainstage teaches us something new.  The cast learns something new about how to improvise on stage; the crew learns something new about how to elevate the production; even the audience can learn how improv can do something that they've never seen before.  We love the shows that take us into new territory, whether that's something technical we haven't done, emotional territory we haven't explored, or telling stories that we haven't seen represented in improv.  Tell us how your show will take us somewhere we haven't been!

4. Above all, we love the ideas that you are excited about.

Every great mainstage is, deep down, about something the director cares about passionately.  Whether it's an elaborate short-form structure, or an adaptation of known IP, or a wildly-experimental format, there's something at its core that's important to the director.  It's the thing they're chasing after by making the show.  Maybe there's a very specific feeling you want the audience to feel.  Maybe there's an idea you want them to think about.  Regardless, there's something that you're passionate about bringing to the audience.

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Related to that last point: with all show pitches, we're fond of asking two questions.

The first is "why is this show improvised?"  We love the shows that can only do what they set out to do if they're improvised — something about improv's energy, or spontaneity, or collaboration is vital to the purpose of the show.  (It's kind of the worst to watch an improv show and think, "Hmm, this is like netflix, but not good.")

The second is "why this show now?"  How does this improv show meet the moment for these people, in this city, in this time?  Why is the thing that matters to you also important, now, to a wider audience?

If you are passionate about your show, and you know what you want from it, those feelings will guide you to the answers.

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And that's all for now!  We'd love nothing better than a deluge of brilliant pitches leading to a hellish selection process.  We'd love to see pitches so good that, even if WIT doesn't select them, they get produced independently because they're so appealing and well-thought-out.  So if you have questions, please seek us out and ask us, or email us at hello@waywardimprov.ca.  

The Wayward Improvised Theatre Board