Content by

Long Le Ha Duc Thanh

Hoang Ha Linh Chi
Dao Hang Huan Nguyen
Mia Liu Vo Phuong Thao
Le Kim Thanh Tu Le

Design by
Tu Le
Our first miles together
Hanoi, 2015
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. IMPROV TO IMPROVE 6
The story about the first comedy community in Hanoi

2. COMEDY KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES 31

Better styles, wider audience

3. HUMANS OF THE ROTTEN GRAPES 45

What the map cuts up, comedy cuts across
CHAPTER I

IMPROV TO IMPROVE
“The story about the first improv community in Hanoi” 6
This chapter is originally a post by Long Le, The Founder of The Rotten Grapes Comedy,

on the community Facebook group when our first independent theater came to a close.

The title of the post is “The Rise and Fall and Rise of The Rotten Grapes”. A year has

passed since then and on looking back, we are all proud that we have survived this roller

coaster together.
PART 1
2015 - GETTING INTO IMPROV
That was my final semester at university so there was not much to do. I grew up with
comedy, learning English by Comedy from SNL, Youtube, a lot a lot of sitcoms so I
thought it was cool if I could be funny. Feb 2015, after Tet Holiday, Héloïse posted in a
group asking if there were any Improv Group. I immediately saw that could be something
to help me get into comedy. I contacted her and met up to plan.

2 weeks later, The Rotten Grapes was born after I read an article online about how to
name an improv troupe. I was obsessed with The Second City and Tina Fey, so I had to
name the group The something. It was my bathroom when I went number 2 that the name
was born (true story). The Greatest Porn explaination came after few months.
We rented a coffee show for 300k a night to be a practice place. We learned “Yes and”,
“Don't ask Questions”, “Animal Embodiment” and played some short form games like
“Freeze tag”, “Emotions”, etc. The first workshop was Tuesday, May 12th 2015. I
remember it because few days before I made this song to promote for the first workshop.
It was this song that the Slogan on the back of the T-shirt and the logo were made.
Slogan "You can always find a FUNNY way to live" (not fun but funny) reminded me that I
had to be more about the funny at that time.

It was because of these workshops, I got to know more about my girlfriend, An An.

Check out our promo song for the first workshop here
After 4 weeks, I got an internship at Agribank in my hometown so I said goodbye to Hanoi,
I went back to my hometown and had Nga Trieu run the group for me. Blake was with us
at that time and the first amateur show was on July 2015. It was new and fun to watch and
of course I was not there with that first show but I got a guy to record it for me.

I was still controling the group from remotely. I told Nga what games she could have the
group play. I asked other friends who showed up and who didn't as I take RSVP very
seriously. After the amateur show, we kept meeting up once a week to play games but
getting worse since new people came all the time and less and less people came. I felt
worried but there was anything I could do about it. I could only went to Hanoi once a
month at that time because I didn't make much money.
“Long was one of my first friends in Vietnam. I moved to Hanoi in mid 2013 for a job. Being
a social person, after moving to Vietnam and settling into my life there, I sought friends
through a Meetup group called Hanoi in English. Unbeknownst to me, the first event that I
went to, was the group's second event, and at that point, we had only about eight or nine
members. After several months, the group began to grow, and one of the earliest members
was Long Le.

It was Long Le's initiative and drive to develop social communities that put him in the
leadership position. The Hanoi in English social community birthed a stand-up comedy
group, a gaming club, and an NGO that worked with children to learn to code. After
gaining momentum with these events Long built the two biggest successes to come out of
the community, The Rotten Grapes improve group and TEDx Hanoi.

In late 2014, I remember Long talking about wanting to start an improv group. I mentioned
that I'd be interested if he started it, and didn't think about it much until two days later,
when to my surprise, Long called me and invited me to the first improv group meetup.

This precocious young guy had organized an improv teacher, a practice space, and
several interested members within less than two days of suggesting the group's formation.
I was awestruck! And I certainly wanted to be part of anything that Long was doing
because I knew it would be great.”

Blake Nichols
But screw that, from August I got my salary, 200 bucks (4 million VND). That was small
but I didn't have any cost. I lived with my parents so I could do anything I wanted with my
money so I paid Blackbox 500k a night to have the group practice at a nicer venue and
asked Nga to collect the money for me when I came down. Since we had Blackbox, more
people came because the venue was a lot better than the coffee we rented with 300k so
the group was saved.

I was contacted by Lannah Nguyen a

month later saying that she could host a
few workshops. That was the time when
our first instructor Héloïse Poule went
back to France. That’s why the 2nd promo
was made with the line: The Rotten
Grapes is back with "new hosts" and
"new games".

It was a Saturday, September 2015. Lannah did a workshop. It was purely on object work,
I recalled. Then, we went for Tra Da (Iced Tea) after and I said: "Hey, I think we're funny,
let's do a show and charge money". Everybody was like "Yes". So the first official show was
created. It was Oct 17th, 60k a ticket for free beer. I planned the whole thing remotely from
Lai Chau, I booked a 4 stand up comics (Blake, Erick Garcia, Suave Nelson Pires and
Rockstar Alex the magician). That was why the first show was 2 hours long and we kept
that length for amost a year and a half.
The first show was so much fun and I thought, “Holy shit! We're funny.” So right after that
show we felt like doing another show. The second one was on Dec 12, this was a very
important show because we got two new members who changed us. Marion Viau with her
high energy helped Nga a lot and she became the new instructor for the whole group.
Michoel Burger, the best improviser that we ever had. He was the one who told me about
long form improv and UCB.

After the show, I went back to my hometown on Sunday feeling that I could do anything
in the world.

“Hanoi was one of the first times I

got a chance to teach improv.
Back in 2015 I’d only taken a few
basic courses in New York and
done a couple of shows and
finding a group of people not only
willing but eager to allow me to
share that knowledge made me
fall in love with TRG right away.

As we both grew in experience TRG became a place where I always feel welcome.
This allows us to experiment - with formats, styles, exercises - in ways I haven’t been able
to elsewhere; each time I come back it’s a growing experience.”

Michoel Burger
Up to this point, I started to read books and watch improv. I was searching UCB that
Michoel told me about, and then I found the ASSSSCAT with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler,
which absolutely changed my mind. I was like: "Holy shit! Improv can be this cool." I was
all about long form since Dec 2015.

We did one more show in Jan 2016. It was a ok show. I started to feel bored with short form
I started to tell everybody how much I loved "free scenes" with no rules, just pure comedy
from situation and character.

It’s Saturday Night - Our Jan 2016 show

 PART 2
2016 - IMPROV 101 AND THE BEGINNING
OF LONG FORM IMPROV
Realizing that people were not going to join group practice weekly, I told Marion and Nga to
run a class and charge money. It was Jan 2015 that the Improv 101 was born with 500k for
a 4-week program and a free T-shirt (back then only students, me and my girlfriend had the
T-shirt, even Marion and Nga the instructors I didn't give them). We made 300K+ profit
running the class. If I count all my travel fee, then I lost 2 million a month, but it's worth it.

April 2016, up to this point, we still did show once a month, practice weekly and improv 101
the 2nd class was held at Kinergie (7th floor of our building). The class was a big success,
joined by great students like Claire Allured, Darius Gervinskas, Kseniia Butova...

Darius hooked us up with Hai Phong people and we did a show in Hai Phong in March
2016. It was so sexual with forbidden ice cream. The show was "Meh", but I did a scene
where I proved the whole group that the scene needed to have a game and we needed a
focal point so we could get group mind to work. It was the forbidden Ice Cream scene
where I played it as if it was a Chinise Kungfu secret.
After that show I kept bragging about how we should start to do long form and improvise
scene that exist in the real life with only one unusual element. I helped a business do a big
loan, 3 million dollars, so I actually didn’t have to care much about working in the bank
since I met the goal, lol. That gave me more time to spend for the group.

Kseniia Butova connected us with To Be Continued, an Improv Troupe from Hong Kong. It
set us up to the big scale. I thought to myself: "Hell yeah, they're funny, let's do a big show
and invite them over. We got full house all the time". We aimed for the first big show, July
2016 L'Espace show in front of 200 people..
May 2016, I met Nick. He had worked with some UCB people and he agreed to teach us
long form. I was like, “Please learn it so we can do it at L'Espace in July.” I made a bunch
of copies of his UCB manual, which he allowed me to do saying only The Rotten Grapes
could hold the book.

I was in my hometown pushing the group practice while Nga was running the group
practice. I could tell the the group practice was shitty, not too many people showed so Nga
was all stressed. But I was not the one running so when I was in town, I was all like: "C'mon
guys, we can do it, we're funny". And I made 2 mistakes so that We lost Nga as a member
forever. I pushed the group to perform at my TEDx event on April and a show in June, both
2 shows were in short notice, TEDx 3 days before and the show in June 2 weeks before as
my philosophy was: "C'mon it's short form, We just need to know the rules, it'll be funny,
take risks and it goes with itself". Blake and I were like, “Who care if we fail, as long as
we have fun.” Nga couldn't stand the way I led the group so she gave me the finger after
the performance at my TEDx and we never spoke after then. I was too cocky.
The L’Espace show was a huge sucess. 170 people showed up even it was raining. We
killed 70% improv and all stand-ups were fantastic. We sold 160k a ticket and 220k a VIP
ticket that show. We broke even that show as we sponsored the Hong Kong group flight
ticket.

I got more cocky. I was not afraid of anything, thinking I'm the best despite Nga being off
the group and L'espace show being Marion last show. Then, Nick had to go back to his
country and he had food poisoning so he cound not even join the L'Espace big show. The
group had no leader who stays in Hanoi at that time

I took the training position for the very first time, it

was time to teach the group what I’d learned from all
the books and shows I'd watched. We ran long form
only group practice, starting from “Characters”, “Be
yourself”, “Recognizing the unusual thing”,
“Hightening”, “Exploring”, etc. 1-2 months after, it was
so sad that Blake still asked: "Wait, what is the game
of the scene again?" Because of not being able to
show up every week, we couldn't do long form.
After 2 months of training we failed long form and
still did short form show.
At the end of July 2016, Liron, the best game based improviser I've mett, told me that he
was coming to Hanoi and would love to run a class. I saw a chance for the group to grow
once more, so I set up classes for him charging 90 bucks for a 6-week program. I only
joined the first session since I was still not in Hanoi. That is why our class was 90 bucks for
6 weeks because of the first course.

In this course, I actually saw the curriculum for the first time that made sense unlike the
other two 500k 101 classes we did before in the early 2016. It shaped the Short Form 101
classes later. And in this class a young Brian Nathan joined the group. He messaged the
page and I let him join without paying the class fee as I knew that Brian could help the
group thrive.

It was a great class. We still used short form to perform but I hadn’t given up the long form
game of the scene yet. At this point The Rotten Grapes members were tthe strongest with
Liron, Hofit, Brian, Marcus Samanni, Anna Edlin Lelio Adriano, Long Le, Lê Đức Huy...
With the strongest casts ever, I decided it was time for the 2nd L'Espace show and Dec 12
was the date. It was an ok show, Chrismas time so we had only 120 members in the
audience. I lost 2 million organzing that show but it was fun. We also did a show at Quest
Festival in Nov, and that got us some students for the next class.

The class being successful, I created 2 more classes on Mondays and Tuesday for Liron
to teach. It was a great class, We had people like Phan Vuong Quoc Anh, Samiad Wishes,
Ben Petlock, Matt Cearley Matt, Isme Anne-Laure Romanet. Their grad show was the first
show we did musical improv with the famous song: Out in Bavi, but what got me thinking
was I didn't laugh at when they struggled to come up with words that fit the alphabet order
or when they made new choices. What made me laugh were funny believable characters.
And after this show, I was sure that I had to teach the group long form.
Another turning point was Oct 2016, I flew to San Francisco to attend TED conference. I
watched "Harold" for the first time and immediately fell in love with the theater where they
did the Harold. This trip led to my two biggest projects in 2017.

But something happened to me in the first week of Dec 2016 that changed my life forever. I
got accepted officially to work for Agribank. It was happiness for other people but I got
scared. I was crying thinking, “Oh shit! I'm gonna work for a bank forever”. So in fact
that was the last straw that broke the camel's back, I quit because I got accepted to the
job. If it was temporary, I would still had that job now I guess.

Hofit left to go to Australia or India in early 2017. The failure of the Dec L'Espace
big show in tickets sales got me thinking, "Ok, we're not that funny, maybe comedy is not
what I should do". I even lost the TET bonus from the bank - more than 1000 bucks I heard
from my friend.
 PART 3
2017 - THE YEAR OF RISK TAKING
However, I was back in Hanoi from Jan 2017. From that time to April 16, with Improv spirit
of not giving shit about failing I started 2 projects. Funny was that my Mom told me that the
fortune teller told her that this year I would do 2 big things, one was a big success and one
I would lose a lot of money.

So when organizing TEDx2017, I had a lot of money in hand because the total revenue of
the event was 340 million VND (15 grands. The cost was almost the same compared to our
profit, which was 7 million VND, but because I was holding such cash, I decided to do
another comedy show at L'Espace since only 700 bucks were needed to run one. I didn't
lose money on that comedy show so I was a bit afraid that TEDx was going to fail
according to the fortune teller.

I was so pushy again since I made everyone do long form premise improv at that big show
while everybody didn't have enough training. We failed long form again, this time in front of
150 people at L'Espace but I didn't feel bad. I felt I'd learned the group mind, and that
everybody in same page was important for long form to work. I thought at that time, if I was
the one who'd offered Premise, the group would have been able to play because you just
need to be normal people in that premise to play but I was wrong. Everybody in the group
needed to know that.
Despite the not funny scenes at the show, we still got great publicity. Brian was doing some
show with VTV so it was important to run 101 classes. Brian and I co-instructed the 101
classes since then.

I designed the curriculum and added 2 sessions on UCB improv style the game of the
scene, which is very heady stuff but that was my dream when I started doing improv. Our
class was very well-structured with great students like Elizabeth Buot, Liesel Chloe, Thuy
Anh Le, Jennifer Kagawa, Ju Spoops, Dylan Hales, Hà Đức Thành, Mia Liu, Steven Meng,
Steve Hoskins, Steve Glushchenko,... and their classmates.

Our theater
After the huge success of TEDx and two 101 classes after that, I got in hand 100 million
cash saved up from my time working at the bank. I was too cocky once again. The dream
of running Harold night from the trip in Oct 2016 and I was actually unemployed after April
16th. That was why I took 1 month off to relax and edit all TEDx videos and in May 2017, I
decided to take the money and rent a place to start my own small theater.
It took me 2 weeks to find the place, design and have the theater ready on June 1st. It was
crazy. I gave myself 1 year to test if the business would work. June 17th was the grand
opening. From June to September, I got the chance to experience a lot of new things,
running new shows weekly, Vietnamese classes, cheap group practices, etc.

When we were teaching 101, Brian and I realized two things:

1/ Long form session 3, 4 were two so heady it took the fun out of improv. But it was the
most important session because that's what I fight for - good comedy.
2/ Short form doesn't look like someone need training to do. Short form is very individual
and based on wittiness. Until then did I realize even I started with short form, I see how it
caused bad habits.
My philosophy and my jorney with Comedy through Improv tells me that "funny is more
important than fun"f. I don't want The Rotten Grapes to be a cult where the group
members just "jerk off" each other. I love comedy therefore I respect good comedy and am
totally against cheap humor.

That was why 201 (July 2017) and new 101 (Oct 2017) were created. This time 100% UCB
content was applied. It could be very heady, taking all the fun about of improv but for me,
Improv is working together, to work well you need to follow the rules, only break the rules
when you're so good at it. The rules keep you safe on the street, same with keeping the
scene grounded and not messy.

After 9 months of the theater, I lost total 7 grands and the fortune teller was right, but I'd
learned so much. I got my goal before opening the theater to see if the business would
work, which could be expensive lesson but since my parents could afford it, I'm thankful for
that and I'll need to work my butt off to make up for that.
SO THAT'S OUR JOURNEY. IT TAKES TIME FOR ME TO LEARN.

I'M HAPPY TO HAVE YOU GUYS WITH ME IN THIS JOURNEY!

CHAPTER II

COMEDY KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES

“Better styles, wider audience”
31
WEEKLY SHOWS
ROUND AND UP WE GO!
1,2,3… improv!”, and comes the most frequent laughter at The Rotten Grapes: Our
weekly improv show.

Weekly show is normally about 2 hours, with locals, expats and tourists in Hanoi coming,
and more importantly, laughing at us. We believe that we are funny to make you laugh,
and your laugh is our fun. We have some great friends who have been attending many
shows from TRG, so to keep them come often, we have to be creative about the diverse
formats and themes for our show. Let’s see, we have The Office show, Saturday Night Live
sketch show, Valentine's Show, and so much more.
We have both Vietnamese and English improv shows once every 2 weeks at the weekend.
From the beginning until now, we have changed the venues for the shows quite a few
times.

If you are a big fan of The Rotten Grapes

for a long time, you might remember our
theater on Nguyen Khuyen street...

...or if you have been with us for a short

while, our weekly shows at a very cozy
place like The Learning Hub co-working
space might impress you.

The size of TRG audience has changed over time, from few to many as we always do
our best to build a stable number of audience with our high quality shows. Not just holding
shows, The Rotten Grapes is where audience can network with strangers and some of them
are in love or close friends now. That’s what we do to connecties communities in Hanoi.
You know, improvisation doesn’t mean we don’t have to practice. It takes TRG performers
a lot of practice every week by trying new formats, getting to know the teammates better,
and being more flexible in every weekly show.

We can say that The Rotten Grapes team is like the family where we find great friends and
relax after work.
More photos, cos we deserve it ;)
BIG SHOWS
GO BIG OR GO HOME!
What makes the Big show special is that it’s not just an improv show.

At the beginning, the Rotten Grapes was a group of enthusiastic people who practiced
and performed improv comedy. Along the development of the group, our fans also
increased. The need to organize a big show to serve all our fans was really there.

The first Big Show was held in July 2016 in front of 200 people. With the support of To Be
Continued, an improv group from Hong Kong, the show was huge success. Despite the
rain, peoples still came and supported us. This is a very important mark for TRG. Since
then, L’Espace has been our home for the Big Show. And it’s not just an improv show, it’s
a variety show, with stand up, magic, sketch, musical …
 After the 1st show, 3 more Big Shows have
been organized. We’re lucky enough to
welcome 150-200 people every show. The
Big Show also offered us chances to
perform with our comedy friends in Viet Nam
and abroad.

In January 2019, we successfully

organized a Big Show in Vietnamese for
the first time. The show offered a new type
of comedy show to Vietnamese speaking
audience. It’s another big mark for the group
and there’ll be more shows in the future.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
SPREAD FUN, SPREAD LOVE
Improv comedy is a form of social art that comes directly into life by helping us stay
flexible while handling unexpected problems every day – Doctors vs patients, customer
service, employees vs boss, boss vs partners, etc. Communication improvisation focuses
on the three areas of conversation, namely Reaction, Adaptation and Response, helping
speakers react well, avoid confusion and maintain composure.

As for educational events, improv comedy is organized in small 2-3 hour workshop or
15-hour courses to respectively provide the overview of improvisation and build basic
skills in Comedy, including Improv and Sketches.

NGO Passerelles numériques

Đà Nẵng

Vocational training center for poor

children in 7 provinces

Organized 2 workshops with 8

hours of training for 100 students.
Saint Paul Hospital Hanoi

Organised two 8-hour workshops for

the medical staff

Olympia International School

Trained a drama class of senior

students and teachers of the school

Vung Tau University

Held a 30-hour comedy course for

30 students and lecturers with 14
lessons throughout 1 week
 Uber

Global Volunteering Day 2018 Mother’s Day - iSEE

 RMIT University

TedXHanoi Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum

Bonbon City Tour
CHAPTER III

HUMANS OF THE ROTTEN GRAPES

“What the map cuts up, comedy cuts across”
45
I started out as a participant in an improv course at The Rotten
Grapes after reading its posts on Facebook. After some shows and
with my experience teaching English, I was willing to help Long out
by involving in the training sides of the course, and we tried various
formats. We actually tried doing improv dating events with different
games to help people get to know each other.

Brian Nathan
America
Teacher

My most memorable experience is the first time that I performed

on stage even though I hadn’t graduated from the course yet. I
got super nervous cause I was just a newbie but the show turned
out so good that I got some new fans in the audience. The light
was on me and I felt like I was shining. It's been almost 2 years
since I joined the Rotten Grapes and it has been my stress
reliever.

Vo Phuong Thao
Vietnam
HR Staff
I have a group of friends here, a kind of Hanoi Family, called
The Rotten Grapes. That there is always a group that I can call
home, is priceless as a foreigner in a strange land. improv
taught me to accept the failures and celebrate the successes.
I accept that there are times when something I do is funny and
other times when it isn't. I don't hold on to whether I am funny,
but focus on what I need to do to increase the likelihood that
something I do will be funny.

Liesel Retief
South Afica
Video Presenter

I’d say the connection and ability to live at the moment are the
most enjoyable things to me. I love that they got my back and I
got theirs. I have met so many interesting people with different
backgrounds. When we are on stage, our minds are just
spinning the same questions “What is the game?” and “How
can I escalate it?” Together, we live and think as one mind in
that moment.

Dao Minh Hang

Vietnam
Business Analyst
Being part of a group which strives to do something. It
gives me purpose and direction. The best memory has
to be performing and hosting the improv at TedX. It was
my dream to perform to a big audience.

Sammy Peterson
UK
Teacher

Long and I came from the same hometown and we also

went to the same school. I joined some of his classes,
did some shows and grew in love with comedy as much
as everyone in the group. I’m an engineer who has to
work very hard under intense pressure. The Rotten Grapes
lifts my spirit and helps me open my networking as well as
improve my communication skill.

Hoang Dinh Hieu

Vietnam
Engineer
I remember in the class we had many kinds of warm up
games so we could practice our minds and quickly know
each other. I love those games, I may use some of them
for other occasions. Actually I feel I didn't perform well in
the shows, but I really enjoy the courses and shows.
I do believe the one who plays well in Improv like those in
The Rotten Grapes must be intelligent to do other jobs well.

Steven Meng
China
Medical Equipment Sales

I highly recommend improv comedy because it boosts my

originality and develops my interpersonal skil, which is very
helpful for my job. Apart from precious friends from TRG, fun,
creativity and energy are what make me stick with TRG

In the team I got to teach comedy to doctors and nurses in

Hanoi Saint Paul Hospital in 2017. I made a humor and broke
out rounds of laugh for them and it seems like I did something
good and useful.

Nguyen Hoang Ha
Vietnam
Human Resources Executive
Whether you are funny or not, in about three months you won't
remember what happened anyway. The worse thing that could
happen is that you are not funny in front of people for 30
minutes, and then you and them move on with their lives. And
the people that loves you should hopefully still love you when
you are not funny. If not, get new friends.

Nguyen Tuan Minh

Vietnam
“An inspiration to children worldwide”

I'm always really negative about my vocal. I think I'm not good
enough to sing in front of the audience. However, joining TRG,
I could stand on the stage and raise my voice, I even sang 2
songs which were all uploaded on the page. That's precious
to me, for the first time, I dare to show people my real voice on
social networks

Hoang Nhat Linh

Vietnam
Student
The rotten grapes family makes me feel like I belong to Hanoi,
that’s something I’ve been looking for, a reason to stay here. It
feels like I finally break through a lot of restrictions I set for
myself over the years. Doing improv has built me a lot of
confidence on stage, which lead me to do stand-up since
November 2018. I now have been doing stand up for 6 months,
still very active in all stand-up gigs in Hanoi, the more I do it the
more inspired I am and the better I understand comedy.

Mia Liu
China
Power Industry

Our graduation show was an unforgettable memory. We didn't

practice a lot and were so weak in making game moves. We
got a cage match facing TRG seniors in our graduation and
luckily we were the winners. It actually felt so good that the
high energy stayed with me for the rest of the week. Comedy is
a real therapy for me. When I get sad or tired, I feel a lot better
with good comedy

Nguyen Ha My
Vietnam
Hospitality
The most memorable show for me was the one during the
French festival. It was memorable because it was my first time
to perform on a big stage in Hanoi. I had a few friends in the
audience and they told me after the show that they enjoyed it
very much. it was a great feeling being on stage and to hear
the audience laugh at the right places during the performance.
And, of course, it was also wonderful to have such talented
co-stars. I miss you guys! mwah! mwah!

Elizabeth Buot
Phillipines
Teacher

The course I did was very helpful, and totally got me into the
mindset of learning how to improve my improvisation. I've met
lots of nice people from the group practises and some of our
performances were really satisfying to do.

Steve Hoskins
UK
Teacher
I still remember I performed right after the first show I attended
as an audience. It feels so weird and strange to a person who
had never been on stage before, but zero nervous. zero worry,
so that must be a great achievement to my life. As a group, I
think we introduce to Hanoi a new form of act and an
interesting way to make new friend. A lot of my friends did ask
about improv. and actually joined the show and course. It's
funny that at first I think it’s only for geeks but it’s not.

Le Duc Huy
Vietnam
Programmer

I love the most of the Rotten Grapes is the diversity of people

there, how eccentric and very original each person is. They are
all a little caricature of themselves and I love that! Furthermore,
the group is extremely open minded and welcoming to anyone
who is willing to participate. They celebrate everyone's quirks
and I believe it is very rare and valuable to have such
environments.

Kanza Yousful
Morroco
Teacher
Not only have I learned a new skill, I also met a bunch of
incredible people who I now call my family. My most
memorable moment must be my first graduation show,
doing Short Form. It was the first time I had tried something like
this in front of a live audience but I felt so confident in my
co-players that it overtook the fear and I just played!

Bex Queren
UK
Teacher

I was in the Rotten Grapes around June 2017 through Decem-

ber 2017. After living in Hanoi since January 2016, it wasn't
until I was in the Rotten Grapes that I started to find my people.
It was just so nice to be a part of such a fun supportive group
composed of like-minded Vietnamese and foreigners. I had
been trying to make friends with expats like myself and with
Vietnamese people, and it just wasn't easy. In the Rotten
Grapes, we all just wanted to do this playful, creative,
vulnerable thing together and I loved it!

Jennifer Kagawa
America
Each member has his own character, his own comedy taste,
that makes us a very diverse group. It’s fun watching other
doing comedy, but for me, it’s much more fun when you do it,
and do it with your friends that you can always count on.
Join us! And you find a group of funny peoples who would
support you on and off stage.

Ha Duc Thanh
Vietnam
TV Operator

"Oops!" was exactly how I felt about my graduate show. I felt

the class was a bit short to put me on stage and that made me
literally say "oops!" out without controlling at the first moment of
the show. And then it turned to be better than I expected and
that was my 2nd "oops!". It's kinda roller coaster, down and up.
Since then I decided to join the main group to continue doing it.
Sometimes we did great shows, sometimes sucked. But surely
you will always feel safe to perform because you know there are
always people doing good scenes or failing hard with you.
You're not alone!

Le Kim Thanh
Vietnam
Coordinator
What I like best about The Rotten Grapes is that we support
each other to push the limits of our abilities. Very few of the
Rotten Grape members are trained actors,and so it is only
through dedicated practice and focus on the art of improv that
we are able to improve and grow. While this striving to be better
sometimes results in hurt feelings from overly-critiqued scenes,
it is done out of love and interest in the whole group getting
better.

Blake Nichols
America
University Lecturer

I had great souvenirs that will stick with me: all these shows,
failures, successes, silly videos, treasure hunts, gifs, memes
and farewell parties make you live soooo many things with the
group. All the Grapes are much more than co-performers; they
are true friends. Even if I'm not in Hanoi anymore, I still feel like
a Grape - maybe because we are so many in Paris!.

Dinh-Long Pham
France
Ecosystem Builder
I joined The Rotten Grapes fairly early on in its development
and since then I have witnessed so many people, many trying
improv for the first time, grow with confidence, learn to shine,
connect with others better as well as taking up or strengthening
career paths as workshop leaders, performers, public speakers
and more. It might not necessarily be home for everyone, but
even just passing through will give a person new confidence,
transferable skills and of course, new friends. And lastly,
once a Rotten Grape, always a Rotten Grape.

Claire Allured
UK
Artist
 THANK YOU
FOR STICKING WITH US!