Rachel Blackman

Rachel Blackman is an actress, performance maker and writer. You will probably have seen her as Charra in Matrix Revolutions which seems to be playing every time you switch on your TV these days (if only that meant she was rich!). She also once appeared in the Aussie soap Home and Away but kind of wishes she hadn’t. Katy Schutte made her put it in anyway. 
Rachel Blackman is a multi disciplinary performer, actress, improviser and theatre maker. Her most recent solo work, Steal Compass, Drive North, Disappear, sold out its premier season, won awards for ‘Best Female Performer’ and ‘Outstanding Theatre’ at the 2010 Brighton Festival and Fringe. (5 stars, Fringe Review, 5 stars, Three Weeks)

Rachel's other recent work includes, The Art of Catastrophe, co-created with director Emma Roberts, the dance film, Ghosts in the Machine with choreographer/director Billy Cowie, Mississippi and The Ministry of Biscuits with The Ornate Jonsons. Rachel worked for several years with Voodoo Vaudeville and was a founding company member of The Maydays where she where she began her collaborations with Katy Schutte. She left The Maydays in 2008 to pursue her solo work which is currently developed with the Nightingale Theatre in Brighon UK. Her investigations into physical, comedic and narrative improvisational forms and how they can be applied in performance continue. 
Rachel gets tense if the butter doesn’t reach the very edge of her toast.  
See Rach's website.

Katy Schutte

Katy is a London-based improv comedian, actress and satirist.  She performs with award-winning improvised comedy company the Maydays, improvises musicals with Music Box, coaches 8bit and teaches long form improvisation.  She won a place in the Funny Women finals at the Comedy Store and was part of the Treason Show and News Brunch team for 2.5 years where she enjoyed writing and performing satire with the Bafta-nominated company.  This year she spent her first season writing and performing with NewsRevue.  

Katy has also worked with Fluxx and Rideout, challenging audiences and creating new ones.  Katy worked as a deviser and performer with cult variety show Voodoo Vaudeville for 2 years and created and produced the stand-up night Rabbit in the Headlights from 2005-2009.  Katy loves the American ethos for Longform improvisation and trained over two summers with Second City and IO Chicago.  She has had the privilege of working with some fantastic teachers and performers such as Tim Sniffen, Jay Rhoderick, Bill Arnett and Jason Chin. 
See Katy's website.

Alexis Gallagher: Director

Alexis is our esteemed director.  He trained in New York with the New Actors Workshop and with the improv troupes Burn Manhattan and the Upright Citizens Brigade, and in Chicago with the Annoyance Theatre.  He has written plays and screenplays, and appeared in the Edinburgh Fringe production of The Spanish Interludes. Improbably, he is also a PhD candidate at Oxford University.
 
Alexis is sure improv is the next big thing. It’s like rock & roll, when rock & roll was just a guy named Chuck Berry duckwalking across the bandstands of Illinois. Or it’s like the tiny corner, poking out of the ground, of a buried alien spaceship. Right now some curiosity seekers gather around it on weekends, have little parties, and marvel at the fact that it can make their hats levitate. But if we just took some time to dig around the edges, we’d find something much bigger, something that will take us all to another planet.
 
Alexis is sure Katy & Rach will reach the moon at least.