Teachers and coaches

Aurora Boles (she/her) has been a performer and teacher at Reno Improv since the theater’s founding in 2015.  She fell in love with improv in 2011 at her very first drop-in class and she helped found Reno Improv.  She completed her early improv training with Empire Improv (now located in Bakersfield, CA), and has taken workshops from Colleen Doyle, Jason Shotts, Rachel Hamilton, David Razowsky, Betsaida LeBron, Mike Brown, Laura Hall, Chad Damiani, Made Up Theatre and Bird City Improv.  Aurora has taught at Reno Improv since the theater’s founding and plays on Reno Improv’s Living Room performing team, Sensitive People.  She previously served on Reno Improv’s Board and led the theater’s marketing and communications efforts.  Aurora loves the wonderful sense of community and the endless moments of human connection that improv offers. She enjoys watching students learn to collaborate with one another artistically in real time as they discover their own comedic and dramatic voice.

Justin Kavanagh (he/him) hails from Saint Louis, Missouri, and has been actively involved in the Reno Improv community as a performer, director, and coach since moving to Nevada in 2019.  Justin began learning and performing improv in 2002, and has been a teacher and coach since 2013.  He trained at The Improv Shop in Saint Louis in 2012, and also completed Reno Improv’s training program in 2019.  Prior to moving to Reno, Justin worked as an improv coach at high schools and colleges in the Saint Louis area, and taught classes emphasizing the benefits of improv in real-world, non-performance contexts.  Since 2020, Justin has served as Reno Improv’s education director.  As a performer and teacher, Justin loves exploring the intersection of spontaneity and world-building, with an emphasis on strong relationships and authentic emotions.

Bio coming soon.

Diana Martin (she/her), a local math teacher, discovered Reno Improv in 2015 and currently serves as the Board Chair. After completing the Reno Improv training program, Diana performed on stage regularly for two years, and in 2018 began leading the weekly drop-in class, The Playground. Since then, she has applied her education background to work on various training projects, including corporate training, educator training, and coaching performance teams. Diana enjoys both the unfettered imagination of improv, as well as the practical value of becoming comfortable with the unexpected in everyday situations. Sharing this with others through teaching is her mission at Reno Improv.