Jim Dennen’s work as a theatre artist and director has been seen in regional theaters and festivals across the U.S. and abroad. He was the founding director of the nationally-acclaimed improvisational theatre company, ED. As a filmmaker, Jim has specialized in experimental work with live performance, improvisational techniques in narrative development, and documentaries. His scholarly work on improvisational theory and practice has been published in TDR and The New England Theatre Journal. He teaches in the theatre department at Denison University and has taught courses in performance theory and practice, directing, acting, dramatic literature, improvisation, documentary filmmaking, public speaking, and expository writing at Harvard University, Brown University, and Kenyon College. He has an M.F.A. from UCLA and is ABD in Theatre and Performance Studies at Brown University. His most recent work, commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, was a radical inversion of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, performed in mixed realities, and authored by mixed (artificial and human) intelligences. Jim has been working and innovating with Joey and Lauren in the field of scenic improvisation for almost three decades, but he is particularly proud of their successful collaboration on the world’s first (known) improvised performance in Virtual Reality.
