Bay Area Improv Acting Classes

Whether your goal is to play and have fun, to improve your communication skills, or to get on stage we have an acting class that fits your needs.

Theater Games Classes


Theater Games
This class is for those ready to jump in and learn improv acting basics while having a blast . If you are ready to have fun this six week class is for you. This class includes a punch card for Intro to Improv. Classes start May 21st and May 24th. This is our beginning/no experience required class.
 Change your life with improv.

Are you the next Tina Fey or Will Ferrell?

Meisner Based Improv Classes
Improv from the Heart™
Improv from the Heart rather than the head is an improv acting class focused on Meisner Technique and scene work. This class focuses on connection, emotion and relationship based scene work using the famous Repetition and Mirror exercises as the foundation.

We’ll focus on the truth of the moment and improvising emotionally rather than a games approach to improv acting.

Performance Classes
Get on stage. Perform.

Pan Theater offers a comprehensive improv acting program focused on improvisational theater. Pan’s approach to theater is grounded in Meisner Technique and Viola Spolin’s Theater Games.

Pan offers both short form acting classes and long form improv acting classes. Our training troupes are for actors that choose to improvise. Pan has been offering professional improv performance training since 2002.

Auditions April 18th and 25th. Classes start May 2nd. Audition Spots are limited. Register early to reserve your space.

Register for auditions now!

About Pan’s Improv Acting Classes:

Pan has been offering improv acting classes since February of 2002. We’ve taught members of the Screen Actors Guild (North California Chapter), Harvard’s Immediate Gratification Players, and thousands of local novice and experienced actors. We are East Bay’s oldest improv theater and the East Bay’s second largest theater school.

We offer additional work in long form improv (improvised plays). Pan performers and alumni have performed in Anything Can Happen in Ten Minutes both in San Francisco and Oakland, the Vagina Monologues and numerous other shows. Pan Directors (teachers) perform on weekly basis with Pan’s Awkward Face Troupe.

Pan alumni have gone on to study with the Groundlings and the Upright Citizens Brigade. Pan alumni can be found performing at Pan and also be found on stages throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Pan alumni also appear in locally produced film and television shows.

At Pan we approach improv theater as skills not only for the stage but also for life. The study of improvisational theater can be life transforming and deep. Pan students gain confidence both on stage and off. Our classes are designed to give you the chance to explore the art form from where you are. The skills you learn will take you toward the goals you are willing to work towards. The skills are not learned overnight.

We stress humbleness and community in our training.

While our work focuses on unscripted theater the technique and skills are applicable and designed for use with scripts. Theater games were originally designed as a non-psychological approach to acting. Quick wit isn’t required to learn our approach to theater. What is required is an openness to yourself and a willingness to gently go in new directions.

We judge the quality of our work whether it explores the truth of the moment and situation.

Change your life with improv.


Veteran Performers
House Teams
Pan’s house teams perform weekly. Members of Pan’s house teams direct, guide and lead the Pan Improv community.

Sample Class
Improv Fun
Improv Fun is our popular free improv sample class. The class is offered four times a year. .

Some Pan Alumni (links to external sites)
one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine

Click here

Pan alumni can be seen performing throughout the Bay Area weekly. Pan alumni perform at Pan and other theaters. Pan performers can be found in locally produced films, TV shows and on stage.

Actor training at Pan. Pan’s approach blends Sponlin’s Theater games with related Meisner exercises. Improv theater technique for actors that choose to improvise or work with a script.

Pan alumni and performers get first casting opportunities in Pan scripted and special shows.