Name: What's Your Deal? An improv workshop with Vance Gillis
Start: 2026-05-19T18:00:00-04:00
End: 2026-05-19T21:00:00-04:00
Location: 3680 Rue Jeanne-Mance

What's Your Deal? An improv workshop with Vance Gillis

What's Your Deal? In this three-hour improv workshop, students will be asking themselves that question over and over again.
About this Event

In order to move through scenes with certainty and confidence, a performer needs to understand who they are playing.

This fundraising workshop - which will include exercises, open scenes and longform montage sets with direct coaching and feedback - makes clear the techniques/approaches that performers need to "solve" and get their characters in no time flat.

DETAILS

SKILLS: Character, justification, scene progression, wants/desires

WHO IS IT FOR? Students who have been improvising for at least one year.

1 session of 3 hours

Language: English

Location: 3680 rue Jeanne-Mance (near rue Prince Arthur)

Cost: $50 including taxes and fees* (There is also one $0 equity scholarship spot.)

Maximum: 11 students

Instructor: Vance Gillis

Note: Students will be required to bring indoor shoes

*Participants will also receive a complimentary ticket for Surprise! at the 2026 Montreal Fringe Festival

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Vance Gillis is a writer, producer and performer originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Under the Mojo Comedy Co. banner, he has produced numerous shows including 50/50, At The Movies, Battle Of The Improv Stars, Slasher and more. He is the former Education & Corporate Director at Bad Dog Theatre Compay in Toronto, the former Artistic Director of English-language programming at Mprov and the former Artistic and Education Director at Montreal Improv Theatre. He's been teaching improv since 2012.

ABOUT SURPRISE!

This workshop is a fundraiser for Surprise!, coming to the 2026 Montreal Fringe Festival. The show is a comedy-thriller about a striving tech-bro’s quiet birthday being interrupted by a surprise guest from the past, who’s bringing a reckoning even money can’t buy. Tickets for the show are now on sale at https://montrealfringe.online.red61.ca/event/2030:773/

ACCESSIBILITY

The workshop space is accessible for those with reduced mobility. The entrance to the building has double doors with an electric opening mechanism and there is an elevator that takes students to the proper floor. Washrooms on site are gender-neutral, with accessible toilet stalls (no electric opening mechanism).