PianoFight is stoked to announce a partnership with Endgames Improv heading into the opening of PianoFight's new venue at 144 Taylor Street. The partnership was announced publicly last night at Endgames' weekly Improv Jam, a free community event that gives anyone the opportunity to get on stage as a team or group of individual performers and be funny. The night kicked off with a short set by PianoFight company members Alex Boyd, Dave Levine, and Rachel Rockwood, performing alongside Endgames founders Daniel Burt, Max McCal, Matt Nelsen and Scott Meyer, and marked the first time PianoFight has publicly performed improv.
Endgames is the perfect fit both artistically and logistically for PianoFight's new venue - in fact, Endgames was a source of primary research in PianoFight's design process. Currently, Endgames, like many nomadic theater companies, is renting one space to rehearse, another to hold classes and a third and frequently fourth venue to perform in. By partnering with PianoFight at 144 Taylor Street, Endgames will have space for offices and be able to stage additional shows and teach more classes all under one roof. Artistically, Endgames brings a vibrant, and generally awesome community of artists which will make improv a core piece of the programming puzzle at the new space. Endgames current education program will form the basis of a larger PianoFight school that will begin by offering classes in improvisation and sketch writing, and grow to include classes in dramatic acting, directing, producing and tech.
The partnership represents a rare example of two for-profit performing arts organizations working together to improve infrastructure, share resources, and grow the community of local, independent, artists that push forward the thriving underground art scene in San Francisco. "We're all jazzed on this," says PianoFight Artistic Director Rob Ready, "I think our two companies have been flirting with a relationship like this for a long time, and getting in bed together now is exactly the right time...before all the cool indy arts move to Oakland."
