In 2010, the Impatient Theatre Co. introduced Toronto to the Cage Match and many longform improv teams were formed. Some survived and others fell victim to the death knell of the Cage Match buzzer.

Cage Match 2010 Improv Tournament
Tournament Begins April 14

Cage Match will commence with the first two scheduled teams of improvisers. Each team is given exactly 25 minutes to perform a longform improv set. No more. No less. No short form. No pre-written material. A clock onstage will count down the time and, at the buzzer, the stage will go dark.

More Than $1,000 in Cash and Prizes

The Impatient Theatre Co. will award $1000 in cash and prizes to the winning improv team. An awards ceremony will be held after the final match.

Double-Elimination Tournament

It is a complicated structure. The following is abridged from Wikipedia.

A double-elimination tournament is a competition in which a participant ceases to be eligible to win the tournament's championship upon having lost two matches. It stands in contrast to a single-elimination tournament — which Cage Match has been historically — in which a single defeat results in elimination.

A double-elimination tournament is broken into two sets of brackets, the Winners Bracket and Losers Bracket (W and L Brackets for short; also sometimes Upper Bracket and Lower Bracket, respectively). After the first round, the winners proceed into the W Bracket and the losers proceed into the L Bracket. The W Bracket is conducted in the same manner as a single-elimination tournament, except of course that the losers of each round "drop down" into the L Bracket.

Each round of the L Bracket is conducted in two stages, the first stage consisting of the winners of the previous stage (or losers of the very first round of competition), the second stage consisting of the winners of the first stage against the losers of that same round of the W Bracket. This is to allow the losers of each stage of the W Bracket to "filter down" into the L Bracket.

The final match will pit the W bracket winner against the L bracket winner in a single, winner-take-all match. This means that the L bracket winner only needs to defeat the W bracket winner once to take the win and be declared the champion. Thus, the W bracket winner only needs to lose one match, the final match, to be eliminated.

Submit Your Team to Compete

If you would like to submit your team to compete, please fill out the online application form and get your group into rehearsals. Your application does not guarantee acceptance into the competition. Teams will be selected and seeded by the artistic director of the Impatient Theatre Co.

Sixteen teams will enter. Only one will survive.

---

The Toronto Cage Match is produced under licence by the Impatient Theatre Co. Cage Match was created in Chicago by Kevin Mullaney and has been produced in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, Vancouver and Chapel Hill, NC.