Meet Our Teachers!
Omar Galván
Omar is a freelance improviser and globetrotter. It is said of him that he is one of the main reference points in Ibero-American improvisation. He has taught at some of the most significant improvisation festivals globally. He has written an improv handbook and also a short essay (“Yes but”), which have been translated into French, English, Portuguese, and Italian.
Spanning five continents and over forty countries, his career has seen him develop his own poetic style, with a recognisable and unique expression. Omar takes pride in building bridges among improvisers worldwide.
Fun Fact: Omar is Argentinian by birth and name, in fact his full name is Omar Argentino Galván.
Marta Borges
Marta Borges has been a professional actress since 2001. After attempting to pursue a “normal” career, taking a degree in Business Communication and working several years in Lisbon, Paris, Brussels, Rio de Janeiro and London in advertising, branding and PR companies, her heart led her to follow her secret desire, acting. After completing her studies in Drama and being trained in Portugal and abroad, she crossed paths with improv theatre and was won over by it.
Marta was the first professional female improv performer in Portugal and was the only one for a number of years in the country. She co-founded the group OS IMPROVÁVEIS, which has had more than 1,000 stage presentations and 110,000 spectators so far. The group has 15 formats of improvised shows, which are performed regularly on stage in Lisbon, touring thae country and abroad. She has travelled the world teaching, being taught and performing.
Marta also works as a television and cinema actress, she performs scripted theatre and as a voice actress. She has hosted major events and she is a corporate trainer for business improv.
As an instructor as well as a performer, she focuses on vulnerability, on emotional, raw and real choices to connect with scene partners and the audience. Although she has many back problems, she loves being physical on stage!
She is a proud mum and aunt, a cat lover, she is mad about the beach all year round, to travel, dance, food and red wine!
She is a native Portuguese and speaks fluent English, very good French and Spanish. She understands Italian.
Fun Fact: Marta can imitate the sound of water dropping!
Alice Rey
Alice started out as a sociologist and ended up becoming an actress. Martial arts was her first introduction to the exploration and practice of body expression. She discovered theatre through Atre school and then improvisation thanks to various troupes in Lyon, as well as Improvidence.
In 2018, Alice co-founded Les Ecorcés, a theatre company with at its core the desire to work more in-depth on artistic intention, the organic dimension of shows, physicality and staging. Physical theatre, Sign Language, contact dance and drawing are worlds that inspire her original improvised theatre creations. She is a member of LACSE (a French collective of improvisers) and within this collective explores artistic engagement and forum theatre in the service of social issues. She has also created the Collectif Impro-Concept which combines improvised theatre and other artistic forms. Les Ordinaires, a long-form show dealing with gender-based violence, was born from there.
At the heart of her work is learning from the body’s movements, the role of feminist reflections, and power dynamics. She has many different interests, including painting, aikido, theatre, pole dancing, gardening, and backpacking.
Fun Fact: At 19, she travelled to South Korea, and her face ended up on instant rice packets due to a misunderstanding with a photographer.
Monica Gaga
Monica Gaga is a British-born black African Queer improviser, facilitator, host and scripted actor and performer. She has been improvising for 24 years, teaching professionally for 16 years and performing professionally for 11 years.
Trained at East 15 Acting School, Monica has worked professionally across England, Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada and beyond.
When she is not performing, hosting or teaching, Monica is championing diversity, inclusion and equity in improv and trying to get as many people, particularly BIPOC, involved as possible.
Monica is based in London, UK and plays/teaches internationally.
Fun Fact: Monica was raised in a household with her Ghanaian and Russian family.
Jodyanne Fletcher Richardson
Jodyanne Fletcher Richardson is an Australian-born, Hong Kong-bred, London-living actor and creative who caught the improvisation bug at university sometime in the last century. Since then, she has worked with numerous improvisation groups to produce both comedic and dramatic works as well as using improv in her acting work. Jodyanne regularly performs with Derek’s MoJo and Pirates’ Prov all round and has taught in both Australia and the UK. For Jodyanne it is all about the story-telling experience, the innate shared love of narrative (be it long or short form) that draws humans together and makes us one.
Fun Fact: Jodyanne puts her innate sense of story down to being high on the Neanderthal DNA rating – starry nights around the fire playing Pictionary on cave walls.
Pedro Borges
Graduated in classical theatre, Pedro joined the professional theatre company "A Barraca", where he took part in dozens of scripted productions since 2004. He specialised in Improvisational Theater from 2008 and since 2011 he works as a full-time improviser/teacher/manager in the successful Portuguese troupe OS IMPROVÁVEIS, both in medium and long format shows that the group has created.
Pedro has participated in several international Impro events around the world as a teacher and/or performer. Pedro has taught improvisation courses along with his group for many years, counting hundreds of graduated students, some of which have grown into their own Improv groups and keep an active community. He likes to combine the truth of theatre acting with the playfulness and creativity of Improvisation techniques.
Pedro is also a voice actor and a corporate trainer, he does regular communication and public speaking coaching in international institutions like IMD Lausanne, IE Madrid, Lufthansa, Deloitte, Accenture, amongst many others.
Fun Fact: He ate lobster at McDonald’s!