instructors

The courses we offer are taught by our team of experienced Improv Instructors.

Brian Kapell – Artistic Director

Brian Kapell holds an MFA in Theatre Management from California State University-Long Beach, and 2 BA degrees in Theatre and Communicative Disorders from University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught acting and theatre history at CSU-LB, and has been teaching Business English at Berlin School of English for the past 7 years. He was one of the founding members of ComedySportz-Madison in 1984, helped found and direct ComedySportz-Washington DC from 1988- 1991, directed dozens of plays and musicals at theatre centers in Austin TX, Santa Fe NM, Cleveland OH, and others, including 9 original musicals written and performed by children in Walnut Creek, California. In 1989, he created the Laughing Lizard Lounge Comedy Club in Washington DC as a home-base for CSz-WDC. ‘Dedicated to Weird Fun’, this full-service restaurant and bar produced live music and comedy, and operated as a rehearsal hall and workshop space. He wrote and administered numerous federal, state and corporate grants for educational theatre projects in the USA, including major grants with Department of Education and various state agencies to expand Theatre of the Deaf programming around the USA. He was on the production team of the Tony Award-nominated, Broadway revival of Big River, a co-production between Deaf West Theatre and the Roundabout Theatre in 2003. He established Laugh Olympics in Berlin in 2005, and re-branded the show to ComedySportz-Berlin in April 2010. He founded Spirit Yoga Berlin with his wife Patricia Thielemann. They have 2 children, Benjamin and Philip.

Mat Mailandt

Mat Mailandt has worked as an improviser, actor, director and teacher
for the last eight years.  He hails from Calgary, Canada – the home of
performance improv.  In 2008 he received his BFA in Theatre from the
University of Calgary.  He has taught students aged 4-64 the art of
improv and acting.  His teaching is heavily influenced by Keith
Johnstone and Rick Hilton, both founding members of the Loose Moose
Theatre and the worldwide Theatresports phenomenon.   He is a short
form specialist, a long form enthusiast and learns something new about
improv every day. From 2005-10 he served as the Artistic Director of
Calgary Young People’s Theatre. During this time Mat had the
opportunity to teach over eight hundred students in two different
provinces. Berlin is now home, and he hopes to bring his Canadian
perspective to the studios of the German Capital.