Blocking Chris’s face at the Seattle Festival of Improv Theatre 2020
Improvised theatre
A former member of Instant Theatre Company and guest player with The Fictionals, in 2015 Travis won the Favourite Male Performer award at VIIF in Vancouver, and has since been selected for festivals across Canada and in the US. Travis was a co-creator of Vancouver’s long running mashup of scripted and improv theatre, The Actor’s Nightmare, and has directed and produced improvised Twilight Zone episodes, a rap musical, and more.
Travis trained in improv, clown, and bouffon with Alistair Cook, David MacMurray Smith, Deanna Fleysher, Nathaniel Justiniano and Giovanni Fusetti.
Unscriptured
A concept first performed by Chris & Travis in 2015, Unscriptured was developed in 2017 into a solo show that has since played at festivals across Canada, winning Pick of the Fringe in Vancouver and being selected for the Toronto Festival of Clowns.
In 2019 the expanded version — adding a musician, choir, and guest preachers — had a sold out run in Vancouver and was selected for Calgary’s Reactor Festival.
The solo and expanded version are both available for booking!
"Bernhardt is an intuitive and wildly talented performer.
With Unscriptured, he eschews his usual stage magic to explore the enduring pull of collective spirituality with a spontaneously-created church service. And it’s BRILLIANT.” ★★★★★ –Melanie Tromp Hoover, Check The Program, Victoria
Chris & Travis
Travis Bernhardt and Chris Ross scribble outside the lines of improv comedy with their high energy, hilarious, and surreal two-man show. Their extreme physicality, endearingly strange characters, and commitment to entertain by any means necessary surprise and delight audiences across Canada.
Formed in 2015, Chris & Travis sold out runs at the Vancouver Fringe (winning Pick of the Fringe in 2017), won the 2016 Cagematch Tournament of Champions, and have been selected for the Vancouver International Improv Festival (2015 and 2016), the 2017 Paper Street Improv Festival in Victoria, the 2017 Play the Fool Festival in Edmonton, and SFIT 2020 in Seattle. They’re one of only two improv shows to have ever won Pick of the Fringe at the Vancouver Fringe Festival (the other one was Unscriptured).
“The hardest I've laughed in ages. SEE IT ASAP.” –Red Phone Theatre