Matt Holmes

Matt Holmes is an American improviser, director, and teacher based in Philadelphia who has been performing and teaching improv since 1998. He co-founded Rare Bird Show in 2003, widely considered one of the strongest long-form ensembles in Philadelphia's history, and was present at the October 2005 meeting that led to the creation of the Philadelphia Improv Theater (PHIT), where he taught the organization's first class. He is also the creator of Matt&, a one-on-one improv show in which he performs with a randomly selected audience member.

Holmes began performing short-form improv in college around 1998 and ran a weekly short-form improv show during those years. After graduation he transitioned to long-form and became active in Philadelphia's developing improv scene. In 2003 he co-founded Rare Bird Show, a Philadelphia long-form ensemble that has been described as arguably the best improv group the city has ever produced.

Holmes was present at the October 2005 meeting of Philadelphia improvisers that led directly to the founding of the Philadelphia Improv Theater (PHIT). He taught the first publicly advertised long-form improv class in Philadelphia's current wave of improv growth and subsequently taught the first class or workshop offered by PHIT, placing him at the institutional origin of that organization.

At PHIT he has directed Hey Rube, a house team named Best New House Team, and has continued to perform and coach at the theater. He has also performed with ComedySportz Philadelphia.

Holmes developed a signature solo format called Matt&, in which he performs an entirely improvised show with a stranger selected from the audience. The format incorporates improvised musical accompaniment, lighting, and sound effects to give the performance a theatrical quality. Philadelphia Weekly called Matt& a must-see and Time Out described it as playful and winning. Each performance runs between fifteen minutes and nearly an hour depending on how the scene develops.

Holmes has taught workshops and coached improv groups including college ensembles, high school improv clubs, and sketch groups, adapting his approach to each group's needs. He has participated in festival circuits to incorporate diverse improvisational approaches from major improv centers into his teaching and directing practice.

Historical Context

Holmes's career coincided with the emergence of dedicated long-form improv infrastructure in Philadelphia, a city that had an active performance community but lacked the kind of permanent institutional home that Chicago and New York had established earlier. His co-founding of Rare Bird Show in 2003 and his participation in the founding of PHIT in 2005 placed him among the key figures in building that infrastructure during a formative period. The October 2005 meeting that produced PHIT brought together Philadelphia improvisers who recognized that the city's scene needed a permanent training and performance home, and Holmes's presence there, along with his status as the first person to teach a publicly advertised long-form class in the city, gave him a foundational role in PHIT's institutional identity.

The Matt& format, developed over more than a decade of refinement, represents a formal experiment in improvised one-on-one performance that is distinct from the ensemble formats that dominate most long-form improv programming. By involving a non-improviser as co-performer rather than merely as an audience suggestion-giver, Holmes created a structural challenge that demanded a different set of facilitation and listening skills than ensemble work. His preference for having audience participants enter characters and scenarios rather than playing themselves, described in interviews as analogous to Pleasantville or Alice in Wonderland, gave the format a theatrically specific frame rather than a purely improvisational one.

Legacy

Holmes's involvement in the founding of PHIT and his early teaching work in Philadelphia's long-form scene connected him directly to the institutional development of one of the East Coast's more active regional improv communities outside New York. Rare Bird Show's reputation as a defining Philadelphia long-form ensemble reflects the quality of the collaborative work he helped build. The Matt& format stands as a documented contribution to the range of one-on-one performance structures that improvisers have explored outside of ensemble contexts, with sustained press recognition from Philadelphia publications. His work as one of the first long-form teachers in Philadelphia's current wave of improv growth has produced performers and teachers who continue to build the scene he helped establish.