Love, Austin Improv Style

Rebecca East kicks us off with Jane Austin Improv which feels fancy, but she’s adamant it’s not homework. The troupe started as a one‑off narrative improv experiment that just never stopped, "We did our first show almost three years ago… we rehearsed for one show, and then we had such a blast, we were like, we should keep trying to get show slots.” Three years, several accents, and a chaise lounge later, the troupe is going strong.

They lean into full Regency costumes, chandeliers, and period vibes, but Rebecca stresses that you don’t need to have read Austen—or any classics, for that matter—to enjoy it. The stories are made up on the spot, so the audience always has all the context. Behind the scenes, the cast does watch and read source material, and director Sophie Hard will still call them out if dialogue sounds too modern. The goal isn’t strict literary reenactment; it’s to “emulate” Jane Austen just enough while still chasing big laughs in the moment.

To celebrate their 3 year anniversary, the troupe is planning for an exciting performance at the Long Center's Rollins Studio Theater. It's a bold move for a bold group of literary improv professionals.

Jami Reetz continues our tale of love with her show, Love It’s Blind, which is powered by a sincere love of reality TV and a sense of “why not me?” She’d been watching the Netflix series from season one and always felt an itch to turn it into something live and chaotic onstage. As she puts it, “I just kind of always wanted to do it.”

The idea floated around at parties for a while before it became real at Fallout Theater. The show leans into the heightened emotions and awkward intensity of the pods, but with improv’s looseness and camaraderie. It’s trashy in the fun way, but also grounded in real feelings—breakups, fresh starts, and wanting to do something just for yourself. That mix is what keeps Jami coming back to it. Love It's Blind had its first season run in 2025 and took a break. Jami is reuniting the original cast for a special one-off Valentine's Day show that you won't want to miss.

Joseph Simmons rounds out our Love, Austin Improv style episode representing The Rose. Think Bachelor Nation run through an improv brain, and Joseph is very aware of how wild that world is. He came to the show as a fan first, then joined the cast post‑pandemic: "I saw it pre pandemic… the show was so good… and so it’s actually cool for me to be in it now.”. The show's first season was in 2017 and is currently in its fifth season with an all-star cast and is set on a yacht (think Love Boat).

He jokes that he’s probably more consumed with Jane Austen than some (Simmons is an avid reader), but he’s definitely “in bachelor nation” when it comes to the franchise. Joseph describes The Rose as big, accessible fun—you don’t need to have “gone to community college” or be a reality‑TV scholar to get it. What really sells The Rose is that it lets audiences feel better about their own love lives by comparison. As Joseph puts it, the characters are gloriously, theatrically messy—and that’s the point.