improv shows
workshops
and keynotes
Tara DeFrancisco
rance rizzutto
LET US ELEVATE YOUR COMMUNITY
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LET US ELEVATE YOUR COMMUNITY ✦
ABOUT US
Bring HERE to your city!
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“HERE: The (Improvised) Musical" is one of Chicago’s most lauded shows and one of the most celebrated shows globally in the artform. HERE is the original two-person improvised musical with Tara DeFrancisco & Rance Rizzutto;
Chicago Tribune Critic-Recommended (the highest ranked improv show), Chicago Sun Times “Not to Be Missed”, and deemed “Nothing Short of Genius” by NPR, this show has been brought to 20+ countries & 90+ cities worldwide to headline so far.
The actors and the show have been featured in all the above publications, as well as 614 Magazine, Columbus Alive, Dispatch, & Underground, The Free Press, Time Out Chicago, and many more locally around the world. HERE is known for notable residencies in two theatres in the states: iO Chicago in Illinois, and The Nest Theatre in Columbus, OH, as a featured mainstage act around ongoing tours.
In HERE, Tara and Rance get one suggestion to create theme through an opening number, design characters and storylines inspired by that theme, and effortlessly weave the strings together to discover one piece.
Funny, beautiful, and charming, HERE “has shown something new and amazing is possible in improvisation” and has been called groundbreaking by audiences around the globe.”
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Tara and Rance have been performing and teaching since the late 1900s!
Now they bring to you their two person improvised musical, Here. You can catch Here at the iO Theater in Chicago, or better yet, you can bring it to YOUR city!
Since you’re bringing us to your city, you may as well have us take our combined 25+ years of improv experience and share our specialties with your community…we can teach workshops while we’re there!
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TARA DEFRANCISCO believes in the power of connection & collaboration of improvisation on a cellular level. Outside of improvisation and staged comedic work, she is often recognized "from the internet" from her Instagram & TikTok comedic bits and peptalks (with over 350k followers all over the world). She is a veteran performer of 6000+ shows on multiple world-renowned stages, including iO Chicago (Chaos Theory, The DelTones, defrancisCo, Armando, & HERE), The Second City (TourCo, Mainstage/etc understudy, Dysfunctional Holiday Revue), and ComedySportz (Chicago + CBus).
As an instructor, Tara is honored to be brought all over the world for her bohemian yet professional approach to scenework - leading organic Harold, sketch revue creation, duoprov, musical work, stand-up clinics, and more. Most notably, her greatest love is “HERE: The (Improvised) Musical” – a two person improvisational show called “Nothing Short of Genius” from NPR and rated 4 stars by the Chicago Tribune; HERE been brought to 20+ countries and 90+ cities worldwide to headline.
One of the best things she’s ever made with her friends is The Improv Retreat (http://theimprovretreat.com), an event gathering hundreds of US/international improvisers each year for a sleepaway conference with teachers from multiple cities to celebrate their craft, brainstormed and founded in 2012, now many years running.
Additionally – She is the Co-Founder, Artistic Director, instructor & mainstage performer for beloved The Nest Theatre (CBus, OH), a leading performance & educational community in Ohio, producing 35+ original mainstage shows and teams year-round, a space with active COE & "no-paperwork" scholarships for those under-amplified in the arts (LGBTIQ, BIPOC, persons with disabilities, vets, and those over 65).
She is an esteemed educator who has created curriculum for theatres all over the world, including all mentioned above, and also a liaison on Ethics implementation in artistic homes. She has been a Guest Professor to the Ohio University School of Performance (Athens), as well as an Adjunct Professor of Acting for Animation at Columbus College of Art & Design.
As an artist, you may also hear her in voiceovers (Sirius, Rocky Rococo, Crocs, 7 Little Johnstons), a podcast (Debatables, the new Tough Love | Easy Love), see her in in commercials or industrials (Sheetz, Dish TV, Vegas.com, US Cellular, Sears, SunTrust, OH Lottery), in movies (The Life + Times of An Unhappily Married Man), on Internet Game Show (One Hot Dollar), and here and there in television (ABC Family, LOGO TV). She believes in that the tenets of improvisation & vulnerability of comedy are transformational and life-changing, and hopes she gets to share the joy it has brought her with you.
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RANCE RIZZUTTO has been professionally improvising since 1999 on stages all around the world. Starting in Portland, OR with ComedySportz, Rance soon found his calling as a mainstage performer after a big move to Chicago to work professionally in improvisation. He sustained multiple tours with Second City Theatricals aboard Norweigian Cruise Lines, heading to Hawaii, the Caribbean, and multiple countries throughout Europe.
In Chicago, he most connected with iO Theatre where he became an adored mainstage performer and host featured on such beloved teams Chaos Theory, The Deltones, Armando – and later, lauded two-person touring duo, “HERE: The (Improvised) Musical” which tours globally as invited headliners at festivals, schools, and performing arts centers.
Incredible host, teammate, and curriculum designer, his improv and prior work experience have enabled him to help businesses grow utilizing improvisation principles for their communication and team unity needs.
He is the Co-Founder, Training Center Director, instructor & mainstage performer at the revered Nest Theatre in CBus, OH. He is a mainstay at The Improv Retreat, a summit running annually for hundreds each year to invite adults to reinvigorate their joy for the arts.
In addition to his hosting hundreds of live industrials, you may have seen Rance in television commercials for Hewlitt Packard or Sears, heard his voice in animated commercials for Sears as well (as a bear, in case you’re wondering), or caught him on the Debatables podcast.
He has been a Guest Professor to the Ohio University School of Performance (Athens), as well as an Adjunct Professor of Acting for Animation at Columbus College of Art & Design. His life has completely transformed due to enrichment from improvisation, and finds great passion in the potential energy and fun in the comedic arts he is fortunate to have as a career.
SHARP IMPROV FROM A SEASONED COUPLE IN ‘HERE’
-Nina Metz
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There is a looseness and also a precision that seasoned improv performers bring to the stage, and it is this combination — disciplined but unpredictable — that can elevate a scene into something exceptional. The real-life couple Tara DeFrancisco and Rance Rizzutto are crack purveyors of this kind of thing.
Their two-person musical improv show at iO Theater has an easygoing confidence but also a satisfying weirdness. Consider this exchange, which begins with an absurdist insult:
Rizzutto: “Where I grew up, you know what we’d call you? A broken refrigerator.”
DeFrancisco, after a pause: “That seems very … local.”
It’s such a specific skill, what they’re doing, and the songs that grow out of their scenes don’t halt the plot but actually advance it.
Their show last week may have gone on two scenes too long — maybe they didn’t sense that they had reached the show’s natural conclusion, or maybe they kept going due to the stage manager and/or their (extremely talented) music accompanist Dave Asher, both of whom help set the pace — but this was the show’s only weak point.
In improv, that kind of consistency is a rarity.
Playing a young couple testing the romantic waters, DeFrancisco admitted, “I’m really bad at social cues.” Without missing a beat came Rizzutto’s reply: “Awesome.”“Just don’t run away,” he told her. “It’s my apartment,” she pointed out, nodding to their surroundings and launching an entire song inspired by the idea that they’re destined to be together because … well, she’s not exactly going to bolt from her own apartment.
That’s the kind of ridiculous but plaintive key they’re working in. DeFrancisco is such a major presence as a performer — she can play it tough or clueless, and your eye is drawn to her every time — and Rizzutto is smart about dialing his energy down just enough to provide some balance.
He’s exceptionally good at playing good-natured if somewhat dimwitted guys, and it works in terrific contrast to DeFrancisco’s sweet-sour sensibility, which has all sorts of wonderfully detailed conversational tics and pauses. But more than that, together they create genuine emotional moments.
Strange little scenario or not, I was rooting for those two crazy kids in that apartment.
What OTHER people are saying…
bring US to YOU!
We want to come to your city, but we may not even know you have a city!
Please send us a message and we can make magic happen!
Visit Us
Catch Us (and more!) at The Nest Theatre
2643 N High St
Columbus, OH 43229
Typical Show Days
Thursday–Saturday
Phone
(614) 929-5545