Episode 61 – Doug Nunn’s Journey with German Speaking Improv
SnapSessions! presents Episode 61, a special show highlighting Doug Nunn’s 30+ years of coaching improvisational theater and comedy in German speaking countries. The podcast features interviews with 29 players from 3 countries and from more than a dozen comedy groups.
Doug Nunn began doing improvisational theatre with Hit & Run Theater in Mendocino in late 1979. In the mid-1980s he started working with Tracy Burns in the double act Burns and Nunn and in 1988 was first introduced to Dortmund’s Bernd Witte and the nascent improv theater group—Emscherblut. Multiple workshops in the next five years followed, leading to a part-time job as an improv coach in Germany, Austria and Switzerland from the mid-90s onward. In this podcast Doug interviews players from Heidelberg’s Dramalight, Munich’s Tatwort, Hamburg’s Steife Brise, Bochum’s Die Hottenlotten, and a variety of other players across Central Europe from Zurich to Bremen. The interviews were conducted in both German and English while Doug threads a biographical narrative throughout, relating a love for various groups and players he has worked with from 1988 to Covid.
The podcast includes Bernd Witte’s look at the creative burst following Emscherblut’s breakout in 1988, at long-form narrative from The Modern Lovers, at musical improv with accompanist Ebbi Grözinger, at Improv filmmaking with Dramalight’s Stefan Hillebrand, at the origins of the popular Würzburg Impro Fest with Nadine Antler, at Teen Improv with Ludwigsburg’s Setzen Sechs, and at the growth of Hamburg’s Steife Brise from silliness to improv business mavens with Thorsten Brand, Katariina Butting, Knut Kalbertoldt and Verena Lohner. We also follow the history of German speaking improv from the first German Impro Championships in the early 90s, to the EuroChampionships in 1999 through the ambitious Impro Weltmeisterschaft in 2006. Various players, coaches and personalities are visited and allowed free reign. It was a ride where Doug enjoyed every minute both as a coach and as a podcaster.
Episode 61 is 2 Hours and 15 minutes long. Both the original German & English mixed version and the English dubbed version are available for download.
SnapSessions! includes original music by Marshall Brown, production by Marshall Brown, voiceovers by Doug Nunn, Marshall Brown, Ken Krauss and Christine Samas and interviews by Doug Nunn. This particular episode also includes snippets of songs from a variety of German bands and musicians. Our SnapSessions! artist and logo maker is caricaturist, Daniel Stieglitz.
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E-Mail: doug@thesnapsessions.com | marshall@thesnapsessions.com