YiFou (Mia) Cheng is a CIG and Improvcamp alum. She founded, captained, and coached the Elmwood Rap Gods (Ottawa) – perhaps known by their iconic ‘Lesbian Period Drama’ style event. She is currently traveling the world on scholarship and is “yes,and”ing her way through her gap year. Mia is a pun-teller and a professional the-dog-from-tom-and-jerry impressionist. She absolutely hates mushrooms and loves the colour yellow. Give her a big high five if you spot her around!!
How has your role within the Canadian Improv Games evolved since you first got involved?
I started as a participant right out of COVID the first year back. I go to a really small school, and our teacher went on maternity leave, and the general vibe was “improv is over.” But I thought, no, no, no, that can’t happen! So I started a team again and went through the whole recruitment process. We weren’t able to find a teacher, so I ended up coaching the team! I put together a group that I thought would work really well with each other, and built a lot of shortform and longform improv skills before we actually moved into the CIG games. I would send out these long emails every single week— agendas of time breakdowns like “for five minutes, we’re doing this,” “for seven minutes, we’re doing ‘Whiteboard time!’ – a technical lesson at the whiteboard.”
I think I learned throughout the past two years to be more flexible with it. I started out with a rigid time schedule, and then I kind of moved on to like, okay, let’s feel things out now that we’ve built more of the foundational skills. So that was really fun, and it enhanced my understanding of improv a lot! It was really helpful to have to understand and implement the theory, and then having to explain it to someone— talking about the important skills like The Game, or rule of threes, or storytelling structures. Not to brag or anything, but going into CIG workshops, my team knew a surprising lot more based on just the intensity of theory lessons I was doing at the time!
This past year, our new coach came on board, so I was able to just captain the team, which was also really nice. I still did all the admin and logistical work, but it was great having an outside eye to watch us play so I didn’t have to sit out of scenes. I think this year, we felt more like a collective because everybody’s in it together. Now, I’ve managed to slither my way into volunteering remotely, which is amazing, because I thought I’d have to wait a year to become a volunteer! I’m really excited about it!
What is one lesson you’ve learned from your time with the CIG that you carry with you?
That anything could be in the box and it doesn’t matter.
What’s your favorite improv exercise or game?
Actually, I was thinking about this a lot. I genuinely don’t think I have one. Cause every single game is so different, but there’s a skill being developed in every game. I love doing skill-based games. Like when my team was learning about The Game, we would do a lot of Four-Square to see how to escalate really quickly. I also love utilizing physical comedy, like improv without words. I prefer going into a scene and just making a physical offer and not immediately jumping into conversation. So much can happen if two people just both walk in with huge physical offers that don’t make sense with each other at all, but they just keep going and rolling along with it. I think that’s magical!
How do you balance your personal life with your volunteer/coach/trainer commitments, and what motivates you to keep showing up?
I had so much fun doing improv that it never felt like work to me. I would send out emails and make lesson plans sitting front desk at the Ottawa Children’s Theater every Sunday. It’s one of those things where I love it so much that I never really want to be away from it. I feel like improv showed up for me more than I showed up for improv. Still in this moment, as a graduate, I want more improv! I don’t have to motivate myself to do anything because I’m just ‘chasing the fun’.
I appreciate CIG so much for providing a structure for starting to do improv in high school. It would have been hard to go to my school and say, “we’re just practicing improv once a week, and there might not be a final product.” But because of CIG, I could literally go to my teachers and say, hey, we’re doing a team, it’s for a competition. So I feel like CIG showed up for me more than I showed up for CIG!
What makes the CIG so special?
CIG is like theater sports. We’re the Troy Bolton of extracurriculars. It has all the good things about sports—like sportsmanship and competition—but without that ‘I must win, second place is horrible’ mentality. It’s never like that! Everyone is so genuinely supportive of each other because, as theater performers and creators, we understand how hard it is to put yourself out there on stage.
At the same time, theater can be toxic with ideas of ranking and performance techniques, but that’s non-existent in improv. It’s just pure, let’s be real! CIG blends the best of theater and sports. The organization itself is run with the spirit of improv, and when I say the spirit of improv, I mean ‘imminent destruction.’ It’s like everyone’s struggling a bit, but that’s what makes it fun.
Every time I think about it, I’m like, this whole thing runs with two employees. It’s such a grassroots, passion-driven organization, and that’s what creates this amazing environment. No one’s here for money—because there’s very little to be made. We’re all here for improv!
How do you think the Canadian Improv Games has impacted both your own improv journey and the larger theater community in Canada?
With CIG, there was a route that allowed me to learn improv with an end-goal. I feel like it’s hard to jump straight into short-form and long-form improv, or any improv scene, without that foundation. CIG provides a structure for those soft skills. And for people like me who really appreciate that, we start seeking out things beyond the CIG guidelines. That’s where the real fun and freedom begins.
It’s also when the structures CIG has built really flourish—when you move into adult improv and have fewer restrictions, it feels freeing. It’s such a great feeling to have that foundation rather than starting with complete freedom and not knowing where to go. CIG also encourages finding ways to get a laugh without being conventional, and that idea of being unconventional runs through everything CIG does. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Honestly, it should be a national phenomenon. The youth involved are changing the industry. If CIG can secure more funding to grow or create more specific programs, its impact on the Canadian theater scene will only continue to grow. It’s already having such a positive effect, helping people learn so much. And really, if not now, when? We’re always in a time of need, and CIG is always there. Any time is a great time to support the organization.
If you had one message for potential donors considering supporting the CIG, what would it be?
I’ve been reading this series of manifestos called Manifestos For Now, about Canadian theater and artists and audiences. I thought it was so interesting because one of the first things that I was drawn to is the idea that the artist and the audience share a codependency. It’s a necessity for both to have each other. I think this is so true, especially in improv, because everybody knows that anything could happen at any moment. There’s so much immediate trust in this interdependency between the people on stage and the people who are off stage. This trust allows you to take risks and truly play on stage, which is why I constantly seek out this trust in myself and others. Being able to have fun without being judged is one of the best things there is in the world. CIG and ImprovCamp are one of the only places where I was immediately launched into this level of respect and playfulness.
CIG is not just an organization. It’s a community. It provided me with a strong network of friends and mentors across Canada that I never could have dreamed of when I started high school in this country that I knew nothing about. CIG informed me of what Canada is and could be. And that’s an understatement of how important CIG is to me!
This fall, we’re calling on our incredible community to help us reach our goal of gaining 100 monthly donors through the Show Up for Canadian Improv Games campaign. As a registered charity, the CIG relies on your support to keep enriching the lives of youth through improvisational theatre. Your donation, no matter the size, will directly contribute to sustaining this life-changing program. Are you ready to show up for the next generation of improvisers? Click here to become a CIG monthly donor today and help us keep The Games alive!
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