The Improv Lineage Project grew out of a question I’ve carried since moving from Chicago to the UK: how did improvisation, once rooted in particular cities and teachers, expand into a global practice shaped by countless overlapping influences? While I began this work by collecting lineage data, this project is not meant to be singular or authoritative. Rather, it is an open “Yes, and”—an invitation to others with analytical and visualization expertise to explore the data from new angles and share their own interpretations of the connections that bind improv communities worldwide.
- Stephanie McCullough, Psy.D.
The Improv Lineage Project is a growing, community-sourced effort to document how improvisational training, teaching, and influence travel across people, places, and generations. Here, you’ll find visualizations and analyses created by collaborators who approach the data from different methodological perspectives—network analysis, computational modeling, geographic mapping, and other analytical frameworks. Each contribution offers a distinct way of seeing the same shared ecosystem, revealing patterns of connection that are often invisible in narrative accounts alone.
This project depends on the generosity and accuracy of individual contributors. If you practice, teach, or study improv and would like to add your lineage, you are invited to share the teachers, institutions, and communities that have shaped your training. Submissions reflect self-reported experience and are understood as partial, evolving, and contextual rather than definitive. The goal is not to establish a single “correct” history, but to honor the many paths through which improvisational knowledge is passed on.
The lineage data is intentionally open to thoughtful collaboration. If you work in data analysis, visualization, network science, digital humanities, or related fields—and are interested in exploring the dataset through your own analytical lens—you are encouraged to get in touch. Collaborators who engage with the data responsibly and with clear attribution may be invited to create their own dedicated project pages within this site, contributing additional ways of understanding the global improv community.
To propose an analytical project, or ask questions about data access and collaboration, please contact me directly through the site. I welcome conversations with artists, scholars, and technologists who share a curiosity about how improvisation spreads, evolves, and connects us.