Laugh-Masters Academy

Founding (2012)

Eran Thomson founded Laugh Masters Academy in 2012 in Surry Hills, Sydney. The school developed a five-level curriculum in Chicago-style long-form improvisation alongside sketch comedy classes, claiming to be Australia's first and only comedy school and improv theatre to offer Chicago-style long-form improv and sketch comedy in the same curriculum.

Growth and Expansion

LMA expanded beyond its original Surry Hills base to include a Parramatta, NSW location and a North Melbourne, VIC location, extending its reach beyond Sydney. The school produced the Australian Improv Festival, providing a national platform for the improvisation community.

Restructure

As of 2024-2025, Laugh Masters Academy has been undergoing restructure as a not-for-profit organisation and seeking new leadership to carry the school forward.

Laugh Masters Academy brought Chicago long-form improv and sketch comedy to Australia as a dedicated school from 2012, operating from Sydney and later expanding to Parramatta and Melbourne.

Laugh-Masters Academy produces three signature recurring shows at its Sydney and Melbourne venues. House Party is a Chicago-style long-form improv show built from audience suggestions, performed by LMA's top house teams. Night Shift is an Armando-format show in which special guests share true personal stories that serve as the foundation for improvised scenes. Open Minded mixes clown, improv, sketch, and musical comedy, featuring LMA students, teachers, and collaborators from the broader Australian improv community. Sydney shows run most Thursday and Friday nights at The Forresters Hotel in Surry Hills or The Factory Theatre in Marrickville, with Melbourne performances at The Courthouse in North Melbourne on Wednesdays. The academy also produces the Australian Improv Festival, an annual event that brings local and international improvisation companies to Sydney.

Eran Thomson founded Laugh-Masters Academy in 2012 after returning to Sydney from an extended period in Los Angeles, where he trained at The Second City and studied sketch comedy writing at The Groundlings. Finding no comparable Chicago-style school in Australia, Thomson established LMA as the country's first dedicated provider of long-form improv and sketch comedy instruction. Within a few years the academy expanded from its original Surry Hills base to a second Sydney location in Parramatta and then to North Melbourne, making it the most geographically distributed improv training institution in Australia. LMA has since restructured as a not-for-profit organization. The Australian Improv Festival, produced by the academy, grew into a multi-day event that draws both domestic and international companies and sold out all three nights of its 2019 edition.

Notable performers affiliated with LMA include Lauren Hayward, co-founder and director of Gaggle, a comedy network and training ground for women, who performed on Harold teams at The Improv Conspiracy in Melbourne before joining LMA's faculty. The academy's curriculum spans five levels across three development paths: Chicago-style long-form improv, sketch comedy, and stand-up and storytelling. By establishing a training institution rooted in the Second City and iO pedagogical tradition, Laugh-Masters Academy created the primary pipeline through which Australian performers access long-form improv training, and its festival arm gave the wider Australian improv scene a recurring national gathering point.