Facilitation is the act of making attendees of an event comfortable, open, and guiding them through activities. We aim for an event where attendees take big swings, feel equally important, and feel supported transitioning between activities.

Facilitating successfully takes practice and planning. The facilitator is responsible for designing the energy, setting rules, and guiding activities in an event.

Because facilitation is vital to a successful event, we prefer to have new facilitators co-host events to gain experience with improv facilitation before solo facilitating.

For Amalgam, jams and classes are the primary events with facilitator roles. The craft of welcoming people and leading warm-ups, games, skill building activities, potential feedback, and closing fit into a facilitator’s job.

High-quality facilitation makes attendees feel energized, wanting more improv, and part of the community. Facilitation takes energy and we hope facilitators leave fulfilled and the experience added to their lives. We also believe in limiting the number of attendees to an appropriate size to make events personal and ensure equitable participation. For Open and Femme Jams, focus activities towards beginner improvisers and aim for fun over perfect form.

You may lead a jam or group that is much more or much less skilled than the curriculum you planned for— that’s okay! Pivot the intensity or activities you had planned. Trust your gut that you’ll be able to meet people where they are.

Don’t forget to:

• Be warm, kind, and confident. Participants will mirror your energy. Let me know you’ve got their backs.

• Discuss both physical and topical boundaries.

• Celebrate mistakes and failures. Facilitators should model this behavior with cheering and energy each time a mistake happens.

We believe everyone should be able to participate in an event. Read our guide on accommodations here.

We have a facilitation guide with an example flow, what to prepare for, and more here.

Congrats on being interested! Facilitating can give back to the improv community, build skills, and sharpen your artistic lens.

We have a volunteer survey where you can indicate your interest in facilitating and more. The volunteer survey is here.

If you’ve never facilitated an improv jam or class, you will likely need to co-facilitate some jams before leading any jams independently. Once jams feel comfortable to you and you’d like to teach, tell Ben Rush about your interest. If you’ve facilitated jams and/or classes before, chat with Ben to what could work best for you and Amalgam.

Femme jams provide a safe, welcoming, and fun space for femme folks in the improv community. The heart of these jams more of introducing fun activities and games to participants to have fun and be vulnerable in a safe environment and not explicitly for building improv skills. The majority of audiences are newcomers or previous improvisers wanting to refresh their improv skills.

Only people who identify as femme can facilitate and attend these jams.

We cap femme jams to 14 attendees to ensure a high amount of play and personal connections among attendees. Attendees should leave knowing each other’s names.

To indicate your availability as a femme jam facilitator, access the Google Sheet here. You will need access to the sheet to view and edit. Most femme jams will be at the Neighborhood House Community Center on Thursdays from 6:45-8:45pm.

Open jams serve as an entry point for newcomers and for improv veterans to meet new people. Everyone gets to play. The majority of audiences are newcomers or previous improvisers wanting to refresh their improv skills.

We cap open jams to 14 attendees to ensure a high amount of play and personal connections among attendees. Attendees should leave knowing each other’s names.

To indicate your availability as an open jam facilitator, access the Google Sheet here. You will need access to the sheet to view and edit.

Most open jams will be at the Neighborhood House Community Center on Thursdays from 6:45-8:45pm.

We will send emails via the Facilitator google group for general accountments and sign-ups. For quick chats, we will use the Facilitator Discord channel.

Join the Facilitator channel on Discord to chat among your peers. You will need to email contact@amalgamimprov.com for permission to join both the google group and Discord channel.

Join the Facilitator channel on Discord to chat among your peers. You will need to email contact@amalgamimprov.com for permission to join.

You can also email questions that aren’t covered in the provided documents to contact@amalgamimprov.com. Please read the documents before sending an email to avoid duplicate work for us!

Facilitators are encouraged to add the list of activities to the Open Jam and Femme Jam Curriculums. You will need to request access to be able to edit these documents.

Some repeated games from recent jams are good so participants can try a familiar game again, but bring something that hasn’t been played recently as well.