Unexpected Productions

Festival Unexpected Seattle

Festival Unexpected Seattle

Welcome to Unexpected Productions, Seattle’s original Improvisational Theater.

This year’s improv festival, featuring teachers Inbal Lori and Kelly Kitchens, focuses on joy, craft and possibilities of theatrical improvisation.

Through workshops and performances centered on subtext and staging, improvisers will explore how silence, tension, movement, distance, and bold physical choices can turn a simple scene into something sharper, funnier, more cinematic, and surprisingly real. It is a festival for players who want to go beyond the obvious joke, stop just standing around talking, and discover the deeper choices that make improv feel alive, theatrical, and honest.

Your festival registration includes:

  • Festival Orientation and Welcome Party on Monday, August 24
  • Participation in group workshops with Inbal Lori and Kelly Kitchens at the theater on Friday, August 28
  • Focused workshops with Inbal Lori and Kelly Kitchens on Saturday, August 29
  • Tickets to attend all shows throughout the festival
  • Opportunities to perform during the week
  • One comp ticket for a guest at all shows at the theater
  • Access to the festival Welcome Party (August 24) and Closing Festivities (August 29)

At the Orientation and Welcome party, you will receive a lanyard that will be your access to all shows. Please ensure that you check in with the box office and present your lanyard as your ticket to the show.

See the Performance Schedule below

Register Here
Festival Schedule

Festival Schedule

Monday, August 24

  • 7:00 pm: F.U. Orientation Party

Tuesday, August 25

  • 8:00 pm – 10:00 pm: Festival Duos/Trios/Groups (at Jules Maes)

Wednesday, August 26

  • 7:30 pm – 10:00 pm: Festival Duos/Trios

Thursday, August 27

  • 4:30 pm – 6:45 pm: Festival Workshop (Georgetown)
  • 7:30 pm – 10:00 pm: Improvised Play featuring Inbal Lori

Friday, August 28

  • 10:00 am – 12:30 pm: Market Theater Workshop (Kelly Kitchens)
  • 1:30 pm – 4:00 pm: Market Theater Workshop (Inbal Lori)
  • 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Happy Hour Performance * Featuring festival participants (Sign-up required for either Friday or Saturday).
  • 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM: Rebel Frequencies * An improvised play exploring hope in dystopian times.
  • 10:30 PM – 12:00 AM: TheatreSports * A high-stakes Mainstage Battle featuring the UP Ensemble and Festival Guests.

Saturday, August 29

  • 10:00 am – 12:30 pm: Georgetown Workshop (Sessions 1 & 2)
  • 1:30 pm – 4:00 pm: Georgetown Workshop (Sessions 3 & 4)
  • 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Happy Hour Performance * Featuring festival participants (Sign-up required for either Friday or Saturday).
  • 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM: Rebel Frequencies * An improvised play exploring hope in dystopian times.
  • 10:30 PM – 12:00 AM: TheatreSports * A high-stakes Mainstage Battle featuring the UP Ensemble and Festival Guests.

Sunday, August 30: Grand Finale

  • 6:00 PM – 7:15 PM: The Dust Up The final participant showcase of the festival. Open to all students.
  • 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM: Deep Dream (Starring Inbal Lori) A surrealist, dream-logic-inspired narrative performance.
Register Here
Festival Unexpected Instructors

Inbal Lori is an actress, writer, and improviser. She wrote and played for television and theater and has won prizes and scholarships for her acting and writing.
In 2015, Inbal moved to Berlin, and since then she has been teaching and performing all over the world, including the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Colombia, Japan, Nigeria, China, and across Europe.
As of 2025, she is the artistic director of the “Berlin Impro Festival”.
In a business context, Inbal is working and coaching companies like Spotify, Disney, EY, Doberman, McKinsey, Rolls-Royce, Sky Sports, and more.orts, and more.

Kelly Kitchens is a professional director, actor, adaptor, and arts educator based out of Seattle Washington. Her passion for storytelling is anchored in the practice of fierce collaboration and her thirst for art-making excellence is in service to her vision of a more engaged, inclusive, curious world.

Kelly is an omnivore of theatrical genres, forms, and styles; and whether she is directing an opera, a musical, a contemporary work, or a classic play, she is well- known for her powerful staging, razor-sharp pacing, illuminating the pulsing heart of characters, and finding the edges without losing the center. In addition to creating compelling theater, Kelly is also well-known for cultivating courageous and compassionate spaces in the rehearsal hall, the conference room, and the classroom alike.

Her honors include: Two time recipient of and three time nominee for the Gregory Falls Award for Outstanding Director; recipient of and two time nominee for the Gregory Falls Award for Outstanding Production;  Seattle Weekly Readers Poll Best Director; recipient of the Broadway World Critics Choice Award for Best Direction of a Play; two time recipient of the R.A.D. (Recognizing Artistic Diversity in Seattle) awards; two time recipient of Seattle Theater Writers Awards for Best Direction of a Play; named in Seattle Magazine’s inaugural list of “Top 20 Most Talented People in Seattle”; and was a nominee for the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, Mayor’s Arts Award.

Kelly serves as an Artist in Residence for the University of Washington’s School of Music; she is also guest lecturer in acting and directing for both undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Washington School of Drama and for Cornish College of the Arts. Kelly served as the Associate Artistic Director and then as the Co-Artistic Director at Seattle Public Theater, garnering many awards with that organization which also includes the Gregory Falls Award for Theatre of the Year. Kelly earned her B.A. from Vanderbilt University and her M.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a member of the Sandbox Artists Collective, a member of Actor’s Equity Association, and a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.

Register Here
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