The Würzburger Improtheaterfestival is one of Europe's biggest festivals of its kind and an inherent part of the cultural life in the city of Würzburg. What started out as an adventurous experiment has turned into an established and internationally renowned event. 2002 "Der Kaktus - Improvisation und Theater" and the Jugendkulturhaus Cairo have presented the annual Würzburger Improtheaterfestival for the first time. Meanwhile it has become the responsibility of a separate association. This association, the Würzburger Improtheaterfestival e.V., organizes numerous other projects throughout the year.

Every year, the festival gives around one hundred improvisers from all corners of the world the opportunity to train with international professionals. In addition, the whole range of improvised theatre is presented in several different venues throughout the city. Not only do we stage experiments and offer theatre encounters in classical and new formats. Each year, we also present the crème de la crème of the international improv scene.

No matter how great the differences within the concepts, ideas and ways of playing at the festival may be, what they all have in common is the fascination with improvisation, the spontaneity and the willingness to take risks. The audience is right there with us when we create a scene, when we fight for it to become a success, when we fail and when we suceed. This is how we create stories and characters before the eyes of the performers and the audience – before in the blink of an eye they disappear again – fugitive and unreproducible…