PIT ENSEMBLES

Dana Shulman is an improviser, actor, teacher, coach, and silly long distance runner.  She is a faculty member, producer, and performer at The Peoples Improv Theater and is a founding member of independent improv team Student Driver (est. 2010). Dana is a proud member of ComedySportz NYC and one of the co-founders of Socially Distant Improv.  She has been teaching cool humans of all ages for more than a decade through programs such as Opening Act and Manhattan Youth.  Dana loves playing and having fun with all her students and teammates, her husband Giancarlo, her cats Murphy and Monster, and her brand new baby Miles who already has a slew of improv performance credits like his mama.

Langston Belton is a New York born and raised improviser & actor. Langston took his first short-form class in 2001 and over a decade later performed Short-form improv in the city for a number of years before arriving at “The People’s Improv Theatre” in 2012 where he was among the recipients of the “Improv Your Life” Scholarship. Since then Langston has performed on numerous PIT House teams and served on the house team committee. He has previously been seen in the Off-Broadway show “Puffs: or seven increasingly eventful years at a certain school of magic and magic”. He is currently acting, improvising, and working as an on camera host for Marvel Entertainment.

Sarah Morgan Ashey is a Tennessee born, New York based actress, comedian, writer and baker whose work has been featured across film, digital and stage.  She got her start in various independent films after completing the acting conservatory program at Michael Howard Studios in 2006. She holds a BA in Theatre Arts from The University of the South and is a graduate of the 2018-2019 Acting Apprentice Company at The Barrow Group.

A seasoned improviser, Sarah performs weekly on a House Team here at the Peoples Improv Theater, where she was awarded a full scholarship and is a current member of their faculty – offering both intro and advanced classes to aspiring comedians. Additionally, she is a proud member of Story Pirates – an organization known for adapting stories written by kids into sketch comedy!

Her original written works have been performed in the Tennessee Women’s Theater Festival, The Boston Comedy Arts Festival, the New York Sketch Festival and more. Sarah is the co-writer of the musical, A Hardboiled Christmas, which was professionally produced at the Boiler Room Theater in Nashville, TN. Her TV pilot script, Flying Blind, co-created with her writing partner, Frankie Johnson, was named a winner in the First Ten Pages Screenplay Competition. She also contributed to and hosted the popular digital series, The Name Dame, produced by Scary Mommy, garnering an average of over 700,000 views per video on Facebook.

She currently resides in Brooklyn with her husband Paul and is the proud co-owner, founder and pastry maker of Kings Kolache, a popular Brooklyn based bakery featured on the Today Show, NPR and Bon Appétit Magazine.

Lisa has been helping people find and share their story for more than twenty years. She is an improviser and storyteller originally from North Carolina.  She studied performance at Appalachian State University and has twice been awarded National Board Certification. 

Currently, Lisa is making final edits to her gothic memoir Burning Barbies. You can see her storytelling show Becoming a Noble Gas on Socially Distant Improv’s Instagram or several of her short films on the The Sequestered Film Festival’s website. 

Sunny Atwal has over a decade’s worth of public speaking experience and currently operates as a professional emcee for Showbiz Talent & Primetime Dance. He is a former State Champion in poetry and has written, acted, produced several shows for the Indy Fringe festival as well as his own 45 minute Solo Show, Taxi Cab Driver, at SOLOCOM 2019. Sunny has also hosted for the Indy Visitor’s Channel which played throughout Indianapolis hotels explaining tourist attractions. He’s been featured on Spotify’s The Get Up Morning show & the BrainsOn Podcast! Additionally, he produces an all South Asian casted Comedy show for The People’s Improv theater. Performing is his passion and he also loves Sour Skittles.

Originally trained in theater, Kimberly Alu has performed and written for venues across New Jersey and New York including Count Basie, Princeton University, The Player’s Club, and The Duke on 42nd Street. After moving to Los Angeles, Kimberly continued to write for several sketch comedy groups and has performed on countless improv teams including Sketch Time Strangers and Sweet Tweets, which was presented at The Second City Hollywood to Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Additionally, her short play Jumper received best original play at the Manhattan Repertory Theater and the Midtown International Theater Festival. Her original full length play Carnival Games also won best play at The Thespis Theater Festival.

Since moving back to New York, Kimberly has immersed herself in the improv and sketch world, taking up work at The Peoples Improv Theater and Gotham Writers Workshop as well as starting her own digital improv network Socially Distant Improv when New York went into full lockdown mode in March of 2020. She has completed over 40 original sketch comedy pieces, a half hour comedy pilot, two docu-series, and countless plays. Kimberly has developed her own line of improv classes, Approach to Dramatic Improv and Advanced Dramatic Improv, directly inspired by her background in acting, for The Peoples Improv Theater. Most recently, she was responsible for creating and implementing the full comedy curriculum for Dallas Comedy Club and helped to curate a series of shows for their Mainstage, including her absolute favorite, The Family Funny Interactive Improv Show.

Joy Masters hails from snowy Central New York where she grew up daydreaming of becoming a jet pilot, a flower shop owner, an archaeologist and a professional soccer player. You can catch her with her Softball team around town with indie teams The Complex (serious improv), Sneaky as well any student short film that will have her.