A newsletter about creating, dreaming, living and sometimes improv.

Hello dear reader! If you are new around these parts of the interweb, I welcome you. If you are a usual, I thank you for sticking around, and yes, I’m still alive!

Today’s Pigeon Post is somewhat of an echo of the latest one I wrote, so many months ago. I am juggling a million projects and at the peak of my overwhelm, while also trying to figure out how things can go smoother also for me! Amongst other, you’ll be able to apply for next year’s Masterclass, read more about some really cool projects, and even admire art from friends. Buckle up!

As usual, feel encouraged to answer to this Pigeon Post with anything you want, and if you liked it, feel free to share it with your friends!

THE IMPROV CHATTER

Festivals, travels, creations, projects, Masterclass… there are so many things happening that I don’t know where to start (and where to stop).

Masterclass 26-27 is ON!

This season, I have been teaching a group of 12 ambitious advanced-to-professional improvisers coming from the Netherlands and from abroad, during my year-long Masterclass. It’s not over yet, but because next season is approaching and it was such a success, I’m already planning on the next one!

For those who have never heard of this program, I created last year a 90h year-long program, spanning over 9 full weekends, for ambitious improvisers. Over the course of the year, we go through connexion, work and deepening of skills, personal feedbacks, a whole lot of scenework and three performances. It’s my favorite way to work: in depth with ambitious people that always want more!

If that’s something you’re curious about, check out the program and application, and send in your interest! You have until May 3 to decide if you want to apply, and everyone will get an answer before the end of the same month, to anticipate your schedule of next season.

I’d be excited to see some of your applications coming in!

Festivals? Festivals!

In the coming months, I’ll be going to multiple festivals all around to teach and perform, so if you want to catch me, it’s not too late! 🥰

Improfestival Karlsruhe is back this year (Aug 30-Sep 5) with a tiny intensive edition. I’ll be teaching a 6-day workshop on performing a silent play, and playing a brand new show with fabulous Austrian artists Ursula Anna Baumgartner and Julia Radschiner!

My little finger tells me (as we say in France) that there is only one spot left to snatch in my workshop, but there are also still spots to grab for Billy’s, Manuel’s, or Ursula’s and Julia’s.

Pandora Festival in Italy (June 11-14) is happening like every year, and this time I’ll be part of this madness of a festival. 600 students, parties, Italian sun, and sometimes improv.

Welcome! Festival in Rome (May 14-17) has invited me to teach, and also to perform with my top-humans: Cédric and Dan. After more than a year of hiatus (and two babies for some of us), Just Play is coming back on stage!

A mystery festival that will be happening during the summer (July 23-26). If you know your festivals, you can get it, but I’m not sure I can talk about this yet, so … be patient!

More festivals? Flock Festival!

We had promised it: we would not organise a Flock Festival in 2026. Well. How to say this. We broke our promise!

For this year, to somewhat honor our promise, we are doing a smaller, cosier, more gezellig¹ festival, focused on the community of participants first.

In the day-time program, we have two 5-day workshops (leading to a show you can perform and bring back home), and two 2-day workshops, all of them with stellar teachers. For the evenings: open stages, great shows and exclusive performances from the guests, but also hangouts, dinners, games, etc.

If it’s your first time, or your third, come to the Flock Festival, it’s a really cool place to be!

SOME LIFE STUFF

I love creating new shows and working with inspiring artists, colleagues and friends. Since the beginning of the year, there are projects that reminded me of why I chose this job in the first place. This is my life, and also what I want more of in my life. Let me tell you about it!

Magical Realism (Jan 2026)

In January, I was invited again to NOW! Festival in Beijing (China) to teach and perform. Besides performing some of my favorite shows (Object of Affection and Soundpainting), we also created a brand new show with Laura, David Moncada and Pilar Cabrera.

If you don’t know David and Pilar, they are two Colombian artists (theatre maker and musician) who are talented, inspiring, kind and very good friends of mine. I’ve stayed with them in Bogotá last year, and I was over the moon to see them again so soon after.

For this festival, we created a poetic performance mixing theatre and music, reality and dream, the history of a place and its people, merging magic and reality. The festival was packed with work, so we had to find out what to do, how to do it, and plan the whole surrounding of the show in a very short time, but when you work with these three, it’s just a gift to be able to do so!

Molière Unscripted (Feb 2026)

In February, for this year’s IMPRO Amsterdam festival, we got invited to reprise the improvised play I direct in the style of the French playwright Molière.

It was a show I had created in 2024 for the first edition of the Flock Festival, and already back then I had a blast working on a specific genre with inspiring professionals.

This year, we reworked on it with a slightly different cast (Chris couldn’t make it), and oh boy how inspiring and satisfying this was! Working for a full day with amazing improvisers, professional artists and absolute masters of their craft—in addition of being human delights—was everything I needed!

This show was fun, theatrical, committed, with gorgeous music, everything I love!

On stage: Charlotte Gittins, Gael Doorneweerd-Perry, Guido Boogaart (music), Inbal Lori, Laura Doorneweerd-Perry, Markus Wisth Edvardsen (music), and Paul Berrocal.

Somewhere in Time (Mar 2026)

Another really nice project I had this year is a new duo-show with Laura Doorneweerd-Perry! After performing Object of Affection (more than 40 times in about 20 countries), and reprising earlier in Flock Theatre our very first show Raison d’Être, we decided to work on a new show, inspired by the book This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amar El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.

Somewhere in Time is an epic epistolary romantic show, where we tell the story of two time-agents slowly falling in love through letters. This means one thing, though: all scenes are solo scenes! We alternate between playing solos and ‘reading’ letters, which means that it’s the first duo show I’ve played where we never play together directly.

If you’re curious about how it works, you need to watch it! We’ll play it again in Flock Theatre on May 28th.

This show was both super-exciting, and absolutely terrifying. Spannend² as we say in the Netherlands. But luckily we asked our friend and absolute genius Diego Ingold to coach us for a bit on refining the show, and this was exactly what we needed!

Kontenkit! (Apr 2026)

This last project is just at its preliminary phase. The title itself isn’t yet really decided. We don’t yet know when exactly in the season 27-28 we will perform it. But I already worked on it for 10 days, with two inspiring theatre makers!

Donatienne Amann and Paul Berrocal are some of the most talented actors that I know, and they are also my friends for more than a decade. So when they reached out this fall to create something together, I said yes and booked time for it!

The show we are working on is for kids and revolves around the place of tales and fairy tales in our education. Its tropes and lessons, its influence on our upbringing and values, but also how we could create a show using theatrical devices to enhance the stories we are embodying rather than simply telling them.

Besides the topic and surroundings, the reason why I loved so much these 10 days was that it really reminded me what it is to be a theatre maker. It’s conversations, it’s reading and re-reading, it’s debating on what and why and how, it’s planning more work sessions, it’s finding out what we want to tell, what we believe in, and giving ourselves the means to do so. It’s not being afraid of the work to come, of the commitment needed, and of the ambition that goes with it. And when it is with friends, it’s even more precious!

I think overall, this is the red thread of these four projects: creating new things that we’ve never seen, with ambitious and talented people that want to work with me for who I am, and to put out there what’s moving us inside. There are days—sometimes too often—when I wonder why I’m doing all this, what’s the point. These people are reminding me why I’m alive, and I’m very grateful for them.

A BIG OL’ SHOUT OUT

I want to give a shout out to Diego Ingold, who is not only an amazing improviser, but also an extremely talented illustrator and painter.

In about two weeks, we have a—pretty amazing and absolutely bonkers—project in Amsterdam, where we will perform three nights of Soundpainting shows. For this, Diego drew all of our posters, flyers, banners and whatnot. It’s gorgeous, it’s poetic and it’s exactly what the shows will be!

If you are curious and excited about this show, we are gathering on the same stage about 20 artists each night, actors, musicians, dancers and Diego himself to offer an absolutely unique performance!

Soundpainting is a multidisciplinary sign-language to compose a live-performance in real time. The result of its use is a show full of poetry, symbolism, collaboration between actors, musicians, dancers and visual artists, that will make you travel and feel and think and dream. It has been my favorite thing on stage for a very long time!

And if you still hesitate, the three nights will be different: one is focused on telling a single story, the other on exploring adventures and tales, while the Saturday is the full-blast classical Soundpainting show. We even have workshops taught by some of the best Colombian artists: a dance workshop with Gina, a singing workshop with Pilar and a clowning technique workshop with Felipe. All good reasons to come to Amsterdam that weekend (1-2-3 May)!

RANDOM THOUGHT

Food, am I right?

Food is better when it looks good. It’s silly but it really participates to how much we enjoy eating something. Paul was astounded by me throwing a few stuff in a bowl (he did most of the work for making the thing), and I realized I like plating, and thinking about plating.

When it comes to plating, there is a single advice I’d heard somewhere sometime, which is ‘think vertically rather than horizontally’. And it works! So now I’m sharing it with you. Plate up, everyone!

I think that’s also why I love polyphony and generally harmonizing so much. Does it sound like a stretch? Maybe, but it allows me to recommend you this song, from Flor de Lava (group of the same Pilar that’s also coming for Soundpainting), and that’s nice.

Thanks for reading this Pigeon Post, and for sticking around while I was so silent! It’s been a busy year so far, a busy season as a whole, and it feels like these are busy times, maybe even somewhere at a crossroad. As usual, if you want to chat, just hit the reply button, or if you prefer to silent-read, just do what makes you happy!

Take care, be kind and eat good food!

Gael