John Ratliff

I run Mercury Improv and have been teaching improv since 2007. I was the Conservatory Director at ColdTowne and taught at The Actor's School at Austin Community College. In 2011 I was named Best Improv Teacher in the Austin Chronicle Best of Austin Critics' Poll, and in 2011 and 2015 I was named Best Coach or Teacher at ColdTowne. I trained at ColdTowne, iO, and The Annoyance, and over the years I've taken classes or workshops with Liz Allen, Jill Bernard, Matt Besser, Joe Bill, Craig Cackowski, Jet Eveleth, Keith Johnstone, Susan Messing, Mick Napier, Miles Stroth, Rich Talarico, and Matt Walsh, among many others.

My focus is on establishing emotionally believable characters, even if -- ESPECIALLY if -- the scene is going to heighten to absurdity. I'm also very big on responding to what's really going on in the moment. If you're not interested in emotional realism or are playing a format that dictates what happens in scenes, you might not find my coaching very useful. Or it might be the thing that takes you to the next level. No telling.

I'm also very interested in organic work (i.e., nonscenic movement-based group agreement), which I think is the secret key to improv. This opinion is not widely shared.