Inclusion Mission and Scholarships

Background

Improv Theatre Sydney works hard to be an inclusive company and improv community. We are a better community for the diversity of voices that comes to our stage, and we want to be able to foster that as well as we can. Our objective is to have far-reaching inclusion across all parts of the company, including a diversity of ethnicities (in particular, First Nations Australians), orientations, gender identities, ages and abilities.

In an effort to reach our objectives, we have a policy towards gender parity in our teachers and casts. We also have a mandate that show casts should work to include people of colour, members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people representing a variety of ages.

We also believe firmly that cost should never be prohibitive to those especially interested in learning improv from ITS.

To further help us reach these objectives, we are proud to offer scholarships and payment plans to prospective students.

Scholarships

Our range of scholarships offer a partial or full reduction in class, workshop, House Team or other fees, to help people take part in our programmes who might not otherwise feel supported to do so.

You can find out more below, or go straight to apply now.

We are grateful to the following companies for inspiration in this mission statement and programme: Dad’s Garage, The Philly Improv Theatre, and Free Association.

Diversity and Inclusion Scholarship

This scholarship is a full or partial scholarship to complete our full improv programme, Levels 1–6, and is open to participants on the basis of Race or ethnicity inclusion, Age inclusion, Queer inclusion and Disability inclusion. We also offer this scholarship on a one-off basis for standalone workshops.

Low-income Scholarship

This scholarship is a full or partial scholarship to complete our full improv programme, Levels 1–6, and is open to participants seeking financial support. We also offer this scholarship on a one-off basis for a workshop.

House Team Scholarship

This scholarship is a full or partial scholarship to participate in our House Team program and is open to participants seeking financial support and on the basis of Race or ethnicity inclusion, Age inclusion, Queer inclusion and Disability inclusion. It is open to people who have successfully auditioned for the House Team programme.

Payment Plans

A payment plan splits your course cost into 2 equal payments: one upfront at time of registering and another due 3 weeks into term. If you require a payment plan please email us, and we’ll be happy to arrange next steps.

Expectations

Participation in our courses requires attending a minimum of 75% of classes each term and completing Levels 1–6 within 18 months. Please reach out to us if this might be an issue. We ask new participants to begin with our Level 1 course, regardless of experience.

Participation in the House Team program requires attending a minimum of 75% of rehearsals each cycle.

We expect all students to create and support an environment that upholds the ITS Students Bill of Rights.