Michelle’s experience of Vancouver’s International HEAT Improv Festival
In January 2026, Hoopla house team, Michelle, descended on Vancouver to take part in HEAT 2026 – the third international improv festival hosted by The Improv Centre.
For many of us, it was our first time performing at an international festival, and for all of us it was our first time in either Vancouver or Canada. I certainly had no idea what to expect – but I didn’t expect to have one of the best trips of my life.
Michelle at Heat 2026. L-R Folusho Falegan, Melissa Parker, Lilla Hodossy, Jonathan Nguyen, Sabrina Luisi, Teresa Senyah.
There were so many things that were different about Canada. Almost immediately upon landing, I turned on the TV to hear a news announcement about bears. I got into an imaginary car with my Canadian scene partner and we both thought we were in the driving seat. I queued for brunch for an hour and made friends with two people who later gave us friendship bracelets (Canadians are the nicest people).
When it came to the festival, I had never performed to that many people before. As part of the festival, we each performed five shows to an audience of around 200 people each night. This was an audience extremely well-versed in improv. Every audience member brought onto the stage was extremely confident and incredibly watchable. The Vancouver team are exceptional short-form players and very comfortable giving the audience opportunities to shape the scenes. ‘New choice’ isn’t called by a player, but by the audience. Additions of ‘more vague, more specific and – for our show – more British’ were also given to the audience and they knew exactly how to deploy them for maximum impact. The set up at The Improv Centre also means their amazing technical improvisers have a huge array of lighting and sound choices, as well as players having access to hundreds of props backstage. This meant there were inspiring offers coming from all parts of the room at all times.
Michelle at Heat 2026. Lilla Hodossy & Sabrina Luisi. Photo Credit: Chelsey Stuyt
Inspiration was also coming in hard from the incredible teams we played with and learnt from. Dumb John from Chicago brought high-energy, highly-physical and heightened scenes in their showcase and when we performed with them I felt that influence us into choices we would never normally make and that were excellent fun to play. We had the absolute pleasure of watching two of our fellow Michelles - Teresa and Folusho - perform their emotionally-grounded twoprov showcase, which had the perfect blend of heart and humour. It’s always a joy to watch your friends shine and incredible to see them smash it as a duo.
Our furthest flung friends were Second Breakfast from New Zealand, whose showcase honed in on life in a small town, and brought audience members’ real experiences right to the heart of the show. At the end of their showcase, they performed Te Aroha, which is a Māori waiata (song) from Aotearoa New Zealand. It’s often sung at gatherings to bring people together or as a farewell when parting ways. It's about love, compassion, and kindness. I have never heard an audience go so silent and it was an incredibly powerful way to close the show.
Michelle at Heat 2026. Lilla Hodossy & Melissa Parker. Photo Credit: Chelsey Stuyt
But in amongst all of the things that were different, there were so many that felt very familiar. Arriving from six different time zones, within a few hours of meeting, we were on stage together playing games. Save for a few quirky differences (I maintain the British version of Mind Meld is elite) the games and language were the same. We all had common skills and an appreciation of listening, supporting and being delighted to be on stage together. This translated into new friendships as well as fun on stage, and we’re just about to welcome our first Canadian visitor who is heading to The Miller to check out her first Hoopla show!
We cannot thank our new friends at The Improv Centre enough for being so welcoming, creating such a fun environment for us and for introducing us to so many incredible people. We will be doing everything we can do to get back there someday and would encourage any team interested in applying to give it a shot.
We didn’t just feel the HEAT, we loved the warmth.
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Post by Sabrina Luisi
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Cover photo by Chelsey Stuyt