It's a perfect evening out in Frederick! Highwire Improv brings you the best of improv comedy across Frederick, DC, Baltimore, and beyond with themed shows every 1st Friday from May through October at the gorgeous Sky Stage.
Never been to an improv show? It's spontaneous theater, hilarious comedy, and you never see the same show twice! Acts range from sitcom-style performance to game-show style competition to an improvised fantasy land role playing game! Truly something for everyone!
Check each month's event for the specific acts performing.
What is an improv show, exactly?
Improv is live theater created spontaneously by the performers with the inspiration of the audience. Unless noted otherwise, it’s a comedy show, made even more exciting, intriguing, and hilarious by the fact that none of it is pre-scripted! At an improv show you’ll see a wide range of creative and fascinating humans perform a highwire act by making comedy out of thin air! It can take many forms, including short competitive games, slice of life scenes, and full length sitcom or movie style performances!
A Highwire Improv show is truly a once in a lifetime performance, never done before and never to be done again!
About the venue:
Sky Stage temporarily transforms a boarded property in the heart of Frederick, Maryland’s downtown historic district into an interactive building-scale public art work. 59 South Carroll Street, a pre-Revolutionary War building, was damaged by a major fire in 2010 and has no roof. Now, the plywood boards on the doors and windows have been removed to reveal a center for free arts and culture. The open-air theater offers drama, music, children’s story time, art classes, folklore, history, naturalists, and film. The local community is invited to program the space.
Sky Stage is by artist Heather Theresa Clark. Framed by historic stone walls, Sky Stage’s open-air theater seats an audience of 140 people among trees. The centerpiece of Sky Stage is a digitally-designed two story sculpture with ribbons of drought-resistant plants that twist and wind through a wooden lattice and the building’s doors and windows. State of the art green roof technology has been modified to support the spiraling plants. Rainwater is collected from an adjacent roof and stored in a cistern to irrigate the plants and trees. Artist Heather Clark collaborated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Digital Structures research group who computationally designed and engineered the sculpture’s complex wooden lattice with custom geometry-generating algorithms.
Frederick Arts Council is overseeing the day-to-day operations of the theater.
Sky Stage is an accessible space. Find out accessibility details about all of our venues here.
About Highwire Improv:
Highwire Improv’s mission is to steward a community of artists committed to growth, collaboration, joy, and justice — in Baltimore and around the world — through improvisational theater. Learn more at https://www.highwireimprov.com
