Yvon Leduc

Leduc was working at the Theatre Experimental de Montreal (TEM) in the summer of 1977 alongside Robert Gravel and Anne-Marie Laprade on an ambulatory performance piece called Zoo, which featured improvisations and the care of live animals, at the Maison de Beaujeu on rue Notre-Dame in Old Montreal.

After a performance at the Maison de Beaujeu in the summer of 1977, Gravel and Leduc relaxed on the restaurant terrace and discussed a new theatrical concept. Gravel had been experimenting with structured improvisation formats and wanted to introduce rules and constraints to improvised performance. He initially considered basing the format on Monopoly, but Leduc proposed something more dynamic and competitive: hockey. This sports-inspired framework, with two teams of actors competing before a live audience in a rink-like space, became the foundational concept of the match d'improvisation.

According to contemporaneous accounts, the idea might have remained theoretical if Leduc had not telephoned Gravel the following morning to urge him to actually execute the plan. Leduc's role was thus both conceptually generative, providing the hockey framework, and practically essential, providing the impetus to move from idea to action.

The first match d'improvisation in history took place on October 21, 1977, at midnight at the small ice rink inside the Maison de Beaujeu. Early rehearsals had been discouraging because the absence of an audience had deflated the performers, but the first public performance succeeded immediately and spectacularly. The inaugural season, originally planned for only four matches, expanded to seventeen performances due to audience demand.

In 1980 Leduc, Gravel, and Anne-Marie Laprade co-founded the Theatre de la Ligue Nationale d'Improvisation as a formal non-profit organization to govern the league and its productions. Television broadcast on Tele-Quebec from 1982 onward dramatically increased the LNI's popular following throughout Quebec. The LNI organized the first World Improvisation Cup in 1985 in Montreal, and by the mid-1980s matches were being performed in France and Belgium, directly inspiring national leagues across the French-speaking world.

Leduc has continued to serve on the board of directors of the Theatre de la LNI, maintaining his governance role in the institution he helped create. His film credits include Tristesse modele reduit (1987), directed by Robert Morin, which is held in the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. He contributed research and iconographic material to Raymond Plante's 2004 biography of Gravel, Robert Gravel: Les pistes du cheval indompte.