The following is a short history of The Spontaneity Shop
- 1996
- Founder Deborah White begins working with a small team of improvisers under the guidance of Canadian improviser and teacher, Patti Stiles.
- March 1997
- The Old Spontaneity Shop is formed and performs for the first time on a local radio station in Hackney.
- April 1997
- The Old Spontaneity Shop opens its first show at the Troubadour Cafe in Earls Court
- August 1997
- Tom Salinsky and Deborah White travel to Calgary to work with Keith Johnstone.
- September 1997
- The Old Spontaneity Shop licenses various formats from Keith Johnstone and Gorilla Theatre opens in London
- February 1998
- The Old Spontaneity Shop presents a series of workshops given by Keith in London
- March 1998
- The Old Spontaneity Shop gives its first workshop in London
- April 1998
- Students at The Old Spontaneity Shop perform in a Micetro Show at the Cockpit Theatre
- May 1998
- First Theatresports show in Oxford University plays to packed house.
- February 1999
- Keith returns for a week-long workshop and to direct a spectacular, star-studded benefit Micetro at the Hackney Empire
- March 1999
- Deborah and Tom begin teaching RADA graduates improvisation.
- April 1999
- The Old Spontaneity Shop competes in its first international Theatresports tournament in Orlando, Florida.
- June 1999
- The Old Spontaneity Shop says farewell to the Troubadour with a sell-out show which includes the sight of improvisers walking blindfold and barefoot across a stage strewn with mousetraps.
- September 1999
- Our second international tournament in Atlanta, Georgia
- October 1999
- We travel to Amsterdam for another international festival.
- Our new weekly show opens at the Canal Cafe, selling out on the first night, which includes a huge "theatre-warming" party
- Our new weekly show opens at the Canal Cafe, selling out on the first night, which includes a huge "theatre-warming" party
- February 2000
- Our brand new impro format "Dreamdate" has its first performance
- July 2000
- We finish our run at the Canal Cafe.
- August 2000
- The Old Spontaneity Shop appears on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe where we present two shows at the Gilded Balloon including "Dreamdate" which is now being developed for television.
- November 2000
- The first Theatresports World Cup is presented at London's Bloomsbury Theare.
- May 2001
- We teach our first RADA short course
- July 2001
- The name of the company changes to The Spontaneity Shop
- August 2001
- We perform two shows at the RSC Summerhouse
- January 2002
- We begin an on-going series of workshops based at Box Studios in Camden Town
- May 2002
- We perform at the New Zealand Laugh Festival for two weeks.
- November 2002
- "Experiments in Comedy" at the Camden People's Theatre premieres three brand new impro formats from The Spontaneity Shop and includes our first improvised soap opera.
- April 2003
- "TellTales" - scripted monologues and an improvised play in monologues runs for two weeks at The Latchmere.
- May 2003
- We return to New Zealand and also visit Chicago - the biggest improv city in the world - for the first time, where we perform DreamDate on the same bill as Dan "Homer Simpson" Castellenata.
- November 2003
- The Spontaneity Shop takes part in the first Make-A-Wish TheatreSports event, with Tom Salinsky directing and teams from all over London competing.
- April 2004
- ITV commissions a pilot programme of "DreamDate"
- November 2004
- The "DreamDate" pilot is recorded and delivered to ITV. At the time of writing, we are waiting to find out whether or not they will commission a series.
