Bio

Daniel has studied and performed improv for 15 years, and been teaching since 2014, shortly after he joined Sea Tea Improv, Connecticut’s only professional improv training company. He helped the company grow from 2 monthly shows to a Hartford mainstay with its own theater and a national touring company. He has taught over 500 hours of studio-based classes, hundreds of hours of on-site workshops, and a few dozen hours on Zoom (~ 1k earth hours), so he’s nearly 10% of the way to being an expert. Daniel is known for his understated wit, theatrical flair, and can often be spotted trying to cool down the coffee in his improv cup. Let’s turn it over to the man himself for some further detail:

Training Background

Thanks, 3rd person website voice! Despite having grown up watching UCB shows in NYC with the original cast (yet somehow I am still 20-something!), I didn’t take my first improv class until 2009 with BATS Improv in San Francisco. While I worked through their program I took additional classes with Dave Dennison, a master of physicality and genre. I moved to Los Angeles to pursue comedy more seriously, and completed the Second City Conservatory program while also taking sitcom and screenwriting classes. Then, somewhat comedically, I moved to Connecticut in 2013 to pursue more serious stuff (grad school). There I joined Sea Tea Improv as an ensemble member, completed their improv curriculum, and began teaching it in 2014. Additionally, I’ve taken workshops around the country including at UCB, Improv Olympic, and The Magnet. Most recently I have taken mime workshops in NYC with American Mime Theatre [sic] and Broken Box Mime Theater to develop my object work and physical communication.

Teaching Experience

As one of Sea Tea’s Education Directors I have helped to develop their improv curriculum, as well as my own upper-level electives Acting for the Improviser and Improvised Tennessee Williams. I have also offered workshops on character, physicality, and object work.

I’ve taught every improv level from intro to performance level classes, to corporate communications workshops, to workshops for public schools. My initial training used relationship and character as scenic building blocks, but I’ve since incorporated more game-based approaches.

Performing

My love of improv began when I created a semi-improvised public access sketch show in Manhattan in the 1990s (again, I am for sure nowhere near 30 y.o.). My sense of humor has only marginally developed since then. I am know for putting on quasi high-brow shows like Improvised Oscar Wilde but also intensely silly ones, like the Improv’d Cinema series I co-created at Sea Tea where we mute bad movies, improvise every voice, and map entirely new stories onto them. Serial Monogamist, my quest to find the perfect improv partner, was the first recurring show at the Sea Tea Comedy Theater, and brought dozens of improvisers in to do 2-person sets in as many different formats and styles, also subjecting audiences to my stand-up and not infrequent bits involving PowerPoint decks.

Coaching

I’d love to coach your improv team! OK, love is a strong word. I am open to exploring something mutually beneficial and respectful. Reach out to me with a quick summary of what you’re looking for, link to a performance if you have one, and lmk how open you are to renaming the team something less heinous.

Get in touch