Artistic Director

For the last SPUNK we have invited one of the most experienced improv players in Europe, who will guide us through a wild trip of shows with charm, sympathy, and talent.

Gilly Alfeo

Cologne, GERMANY

His first time at SPUNK.

Gilly Alfeo is an improviser, actor and musician who has been working professionally on stage since 1995.
His musical talent blossomed when he studied jazz piano at the Conservatory in Enschede (NL). He learned the craft of improvisation and acting as a long-standing member of the ensemble of Springmaus Improvisationstheater, for which he worked for 22 years.
Gilly’s enthusiasm for the art of improvisation is palpable throughout. Coupled with his experience of more than 2,500 improv shows, he succeeds in inspiring audiences and improv students alike. His deep understanding of the art of improvisation makes him an expert in his field.
He is at home on the cabaret stages in Germany and numerous improv groups in the Rhineland have come to appreciate him as a teacher of his art. Also, he is a regular guest in Berlin, the largest international improv festival in Europe.
Improvisation is at the core of his work. Gilly stands for a living improv culture as a professional artist and puller of strings on and behind the stage.

 

Guests

This year, SPUNK will again bring great, exciting and innovative guests to Zurich with international guests from the UK, Austria, USA, Poland and Germany. The cast is made up of former SPUNK cast members from (almost) all years.

Matt Higbee

Chicago, USA

SPUNK-Guest: 2019

Matt Higbee has been teaching and performing improvisational theater for more than 20 years. He was a faculty member and veteran performer at iO Theater in Chicago before its closing in 2021. While working at iO, Matt got the opportunity to work with the legendary TJ & Dave show. He has been pulling lights for the duo since 2008. Matt now supports his improv habit working as an Instructional Designer and Learning & Development Specialist. He brings a unique blend of theater, education, and stupidity to his workshops and shows. Matt knows the secret of life, but only reveals is it at shows and during workshops.

 

KATY SCHUTTE

London, Grossbritannien

SPUNK-Guest: 2021

Katy Schutte is one of the UK’s original long form improvisers. She performs and teaches all over the world, is a Head Teacher for Hoopla (the UK’s biggest improv school) and Co-Founder Director of The Improv Place. She has been one of The Maydays since 2004, is half of legendary sci-fi improv duo Project2, performs with Hell Yeah! and authored The Improviser’s Way: A Longform Workbook, published by Nick Hern Books. A Funny Women finalist and both nominee and winner of the Brighton Festival Fringe Best Comedy Show award, Katy also starred in BAFTA winning online educational series History Bombs.

Tobias Zettelmeier

München, Deutschland

SPUNK-Guest: 2016

Tobias Zettelmeier, Germany; Artistic director from Bühnenpolka, Munich. The double bachelor (theater studies and social work) is europewide as an trainer and actor for different formats on tour, both improvised and scripted. He also works for “Verstehen Sie Spaß” where he loves to prank people.

Beata Różalska

Gdynia, Polen

SPUNK-Guest: 2020

Beata Bebe Różalska – architect and improviser based in Poland. She started working with improvisational theatre in 2007. She performs and teaches both in Poland and abroad. Beata performs with groups SzaFoFe, 7 Women of Different Ages and she is a member of international network of improvisers The SIN. She wants to encourage people to be more playful and to feel more ease in scenes. On a stage she seeks for variety of emotions, using freedom, movement and her own nature. Beata treats Impro as an art that may help us to develop many abilities. Her hope if that through impro we may show what is good and how to disagree with bad behavior.

Georg Bauer

Österreich, Wien

SPUNK-Guest: 2013

Georg loves how straightforward and complex impro is at the same time. There are so many ways to play, so many things to try out, so many discoveries to surprise himself and others on stage. It feels like an endless universe of possibilities, one day treading a path that seems familiar in some way, on the next day he finds himself in worlds he has never dreamed of before. At the core of it, it is about being in the moment with friends, saying yes to yet another adventure to explore the unknown together and celebrate the serious as well as silly fruits of discovery found along the way. On his best days, it feels like the greatest celebration of life he knows.

Jochem Meijer

Amsterdam, Niederlande

SPUNK-Guest: 2017

Jochem Meijer is an improviser from Amsterdam. He started improv in 1999, so he can and will say he has got over 2 centuries worth of experience. he has made his work of teaching various improv troupes, schools and companies within the Netherlands and Europe. He is part of various specialized improv groups. He is also part of the artistic committee of the impro festival in amsterdam (IMPRO Amsterdam). In his free time he is trying to insert his improv skills into the online gaming world, ask him about it and he will explain in depth what that means. (so be aware) He loves making people click with each other and focuses on getting the group to a higher level. In his workshops he focuses on learning trough doing. So don’t expect to be sitting down in long discussions but to get moving and playing when you take a workshop with him.

Gerit Scholz

Wien, Österreich

SPUNK-Guest: 2014

Gerit Scholz has been passionate about improvisation in theater, singing and clowning since 2008. She is a founding member of the Quintessenz Improvisationstheater association, which runs from 2011 to 2020, and is a co-founder of the Vienna Improv Festival. Since 2011 she has been on stage at home and abroad on a regular basis with a wide variety of formats she helped develop. With the improv cabaret duo GeBa and GeSch, which she and Georg Bauer founded, she won the golden cabaret in 2017. Since 2021 she has been touring with the improv trio Die Third. Gerit gives workshops for beginners and advanced and accompanies young improv theater groups in the development process. Since 2017 she has also been working as a clown doctor for CliniClowns Austria in hospitals and care facilities in Vienna and Lower Austria.

Juš Milčinski

Ljubljana, Slowenien

SPUNK-Guest: 2017

Juš Milčinski has been performing in the art of improvisational theatre since 1999, first as a member of the Slovenian high school improvisational league and later as a member of different impro troupes in the adult Slovenian improvisational league, playing mostly shortform theatre. In 2003 he joined the Improklub project, adding longform impro to his resume and later performing in numerous longform shows with different theatres. He is a co-founder and member of IGLU – Improvisational Theater of Ljubljana, where he regularly performs and teaches since 2013. He is also the executive producer of the Naked Stage, international festival of improvisational theatre in Ljubljana and the international project Along the Walk. He loves American football, modern dance and Beirut (the band).

Daniela Landert

Zürich, Schweiz

SPUNK-OK since 2018

Daniela studied the art and craft of improv at theater anundpfirsich in Zurich and at iO Chicago, as well as in numerous workshops with internationally renowned improvisers. She greatly enjoys improv in all its variations, which is why she is a member of several different ensembles. She is part of the all-female group da vorne links, who specialise in improvised plays, and of Zurich Improv Comedy, who perform short-form improv shows in English, and she is one half of the duo Apropos. Daniela co-founded Theater Ida, a theatre space for improv, which is open to the improv community in and around Zurich. In addition, she studies improv as part of an academic research project (https://impro.study), in which she analyses the language improvisers use on stage. She also offers applied improv courses for PhD students, in which participants reflect on notions of success and failure in the academic context.

Donat Feijóo

Zürich, Schweiz

SPUNK-OK since 2015

Donat Feijóo is an actor and trainer. At the theater anundpfirsich he heads the theater courses department. He has been (co-)organizer of SPUNK since 2017.

He loves to tell stories on stage, to be constantly challenged and to infect others with his joy of playing. Donat loves language – he has a weakness for fast dialogues, patterns, espresso macchiato and playing with repetitions. With repetitions.

Gerald Weber

Zürich, Schweiz

SPUNK-OK since 2013

Gerald is improvising professional for over 10 years. He had the joy to serve as an artistic and educational director of several improv companies. He has been teaching and performing all styles of improv in Europe and America. And simply cannot pick a favourite way of doing improv. Something he always loved is comedy, storytelling and genrework.

Emilia Weber

Zürich, Schweiz

SPUNK-OK since 2015

Emilia is and born and raised Berlin-Girl and she has been passionate about improv theater since 2004. After studying “theater studies” and “general and comparative literature” in 2013, she decided to turn her passion into a profession and has been playing on the improv stages in Germany, Switzerland and the USA ever since.
She is an integral part of the anundpfirsich core team since 2016.

Sheriff

Jennifer Sippel

Zürich, SWITZERLAND

Since 2020 one of the greatest SPUNK Sheriffs

Jenny’s love affair with improv has been going on since she was young. After a very long break and emigrating to Switzerland, she rediscovered her love for improv through anundpfirsich and has been living it ever since. In addition to active improvisation on stage, such as in the master class, countless classes and the junior ensemble, she has been serving anunpfirsich for many years as a lighting technician and helper. She is an integral part of the anundpfirsich and supports wherever she can. As sheriff, the head of the helpers for the SPUNK, she has her hat on for the third year in a row and with her team she ensures that nobody is missing on, behind, next to and under the stage. Pew Pew.