An installation of prints of select paintings and sketches by Keith Johnstone, pioneer of theatrical improvisation, curated by Theresa Robbins Dudeck, Ph.D., Johnstone's biographer and literary executor. This Broadway Gallery exhibition is part of the Global Improvisation Initiative Symposium 2026 hosted by PSU School of Music & Theater, July 8 - 11.
KEITH JOHNSTONE (1933–2023) is celebrated worldwide as a pioneer of contemporary theatrical improvisation and creator of Theatresports. But did you know, long before he became a playwright, director, and master of impro, he was a visual artist?
In 1954, at age 21, Keith wanted to pursue a career as a painter. Peter Lloyd Jones, a fellow artist at the Battersea Men’s Institute, London, described Keith’s paintings at this time as “in-yer-face,” “polemical outbursts,” and “stirring stuff,” evoking the spirit of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. He ultimately landed at the Royal Court Theatre (1956–1966) and found his calling, but visual art remained a constant throughout his life.
Keith was exceptionally gifted as a child with a high IQ, but he struggled in a British school system that rewarded intellect over imagination and results over process. Then, at a teacher training college, Anthony Stirling, an art teacher who modeled a non-hierarchical classroom and set up experiences for unleashing creativity, changed everything for Keith.
Inspired by Lao Tzu's concept of the invisible leader, Stirling believed the teacher's role was to bring out the artist within each child, not through demonstration or by imposing values but through experiential processes. In many ways, Keith’s distinct system of improvisation training—encouraging spontaneous, intuitive, collaborative creation—owes much to Stirling’s influence.
The prints of the paintings in this exhibit were likely created between 1970 and 2000. Several, including the “Shower Curtain Series” (my title), hung in Keith’s Calgary home, delighting visitors. None are titled or signed. All feel very connected to subjects that occupied him throughout his life and how he viewed the world.
Several works seem to echo themes from his plays, including Live Snakes and Ladders, about ruthless competition and greed, and The Last Bird, an allegory of colonial exploitation. A few paintings reflect places and memories from Brixham, England, the town where Keith was born and where he had a less-than-ideal childhood living in a three-story row house on the edge of Brixham Harbour.
Can you find the Moose? The mascot for The Loose Moose Theatre, the company Keith co-founded in 1977, original home of Theatresports, and where Keith created hundreds of magnificent and bizarre hand-drawn posters and programs, wanting an exhibit of their own!
You will also notice an abundance of monsters and beasts. In his seminal book Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre (1979), Keith said teachers should demonstrate “that the monsters are not real, and that the imagination will not destroy you.” In the 1960s, he began developing “Meet the Monster” exercises to encourage improvisers to give up control, move courageously into the unknown future, meet the monsters of imagination, and take the audience on adventures. An audience is just “a large, intelligent beast that needs to be tickled,” according to Keith. The creatures that populate these paintings seem to embody a similar invitation.
I have known most of these works for nearly twenty years, seeing them regularly in Keith’s home. I wish I had asked him more questions about the “Shower Curtain Series,” in particular, though I suspect he would have offered few definitive answers. What mattered most to Keith was not what the paintings meant to him, but what viewers experienced and the stories they unearthed.
These works are unmistakably Keith: imaginative, idiosyncratic, and unconstrained. Rather than asking for a single interpretation, they invite us to quiet the inner critic, embrace uncertainty, and enter this visual world with a spirit of curiosity and play.
Theresa Robbins Dudeck, PhD
Exhibition Curator and Keith Johnstone Biographer
Image copyright held by Keith Johnstone Workshops Inc.