Troubled Shores

Troubled Shores, Inc. is a not-for-profit theater organization dedicated to improving the cultural and educational environment of the Cape and Islands through the experience of improvisational theater. Based on Martha's Vineyard, the company was created by the members of the island's premier comedy improv troupe, WIMP, who held their last show after 11 years on July 6, 2005. Troubled Shores, Inc. offers a variety of performance experiences and educational programs under its branch, IMP improv for kids. Some of these programs include:

• Improv classes and performances in local island schools
• After school improv classes for kindergarten through high school students
• Assertions, a project where kids write the text for a performance around social topics such as bullying
• Original musicals created for kids
• The IMPers, a teenage professional improv troupe that performs around the island. The IMPers perform both long form and short form improvisation. The IMPers performed in the 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 Chicago Improv Festivals
• IMPact a middle school troupe for advanced improvisers

In December of 2011 the company was dissolved. Teacher Donna Swift is teaching improv, playwrighting and theater on her own.