Making stuff up for laughs

Posted in ARTS by Mark Laughlin on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 7:00 am

As the eight players from local performance troupe Zoo Improv take the stage at Cowboy Monkey, member Ladonna Wilson acknowledges that the crowd is “small but intimate.”  There are maybe 20 people paying attention; most customers are drinking at the tables outside the building. 

But then the troupe only needs a word or two to get them going. 

According to the Improv Page, a general source of information on improvisational theare, “improvisation is a form of theatre in which no script is used. Instead, the actors create the dialog and action themselves, as they perform. The most popular style today is ‘spot’ improv,  in which performers get suggestions from their audience and use them to create short, entertaining scenes.”

This is exactly what Zoo does on stage. In one scene, for instance, they ask the audience for a location that can be acted out on stage. “Phone booth,” someone calls out,  and the actors take it from there, building a routine as they go.  They keep the momentum going through skits about vacuum cleaner races,  Tupperware parties for men, and much more for the next hour and a half. 

Some of the troupe’s best skits come directly from the floor. In a show a few weeks back at the Iron Post in Urbana, I saw Zoo get a volunteer from the audience to describe herself and her daily routine. The volunteer turned out to be a nurse who likes to sing, and using that and a few other details,  the troupe improvised a hilarious, imaginary nightmare day in the volunteer’s life.

Zoo boasts on their website having “triggered belly laughs and inadvertent snorts throughout the central Illinois,” and this is true. Watching them at two performances and at one rehearsal, I occasionally found myself laughing unexpectedly. A routine where a dog groomer carries on a conversation with the stuck-up Yorkshire he is grooming comes to mind. 

Even when the scene isn’t all that hilarious, the fact that the actors are working totally on their feet to create something coherent is impressive. The narratives play out, some more entertaining than others, but always in a seemless kind of way that looks rehearsed, even if it isn’t.

These kind of improv chops apparently don’t develop overnight. Actress Tami Haubner says, “I think that I’ve always had traits that an improviser needs to be able to do this kind of work. But I definitely had to learn the skills of improvisation, and I was in a learning mode with this troupe for over a year before I performed with them for the first time.” Haubner, a self-described “escapee” from corporate America found herself drawn to improv after an acting teacher suggested it as a good medium for her to try. 

So how does the group rehearse for something that’s spontaneous? The practice session I saw basically consisted of the players running skits much as they do live: a few loose guidelines were agreed upon — setting the number of players in the scene, for instance — and then things would roll from there. In one practice scene, the only guidance was that the action take place in a magical forest. The players spun a fifteen minute narrative involving, among other things, an NBA player who became overly emotional whenever he thought of puppies. 

However, unlike at their live shows,  the troupe would stop between scenes to dissect what worked and didn’t work. One of the players served as the “coach” of the rehearsal I saw, but this role rotates from member to member at different practices.  There’s no permanent group leader. 

For member Aubrey Wachtel, the lack of a script is part of the appeal of improv. She says of acting in traditional theater, “I find the idea of preparing to do one character over a long period of time to be absolutely torturous,”  but “improv to me is much easier in terms applying to my interests.”  Fellow performer Brain Hagy elaborates: “Improv audiences tend to be more forgiving as well, because they know that you’re creating in the moment.”

Improv is definitely a team sport.  The group dynamic can become just as important as individual talent,  in the same way that All-Star sports squads aren’t always as good as some of the teams their players are taken from because the All Stars haven’t had enough practice time together to really gel. The performers in Zoo Improv feel they have a good team put together. “We know what each of our strengths and weaknesses are,” says Nagy.   For instance, “if James [Wachtel] goes to a kind of a philosophical character, we can know how to play with him now. We know how to support him.” 

Because of the real time nature of Improv, this spontaneity has to become second nature. As Donna Wilson says, “I wish I had time to think about it.”

On Saturday Night Live, characters return from episode to episode. According to the members of Zoo,  you can have characters return from skit to ski in improv, but it’s not necessarily good. If the hillbilly character isn’t working,  then drop him. If he’s still funny, then maybe keep him in for another scene or two. 

In improv, there are few, if any,  props. I ask if this is sometimes limiting, if the players would sometimes like to wave a magic wand and have the Jaguar automobile they’re creating a scene around actually appear on stage. Hagy says no,  that “our fellow players are going to be that magical wand. Improv is the greatest portable theater in the world. You have infinite props. Infinite storylines.” 

In short, the lack of overhead is liberating. 

The group defines a successful performance as being one that works well, but doesn’t necessarily get the most laughs. They remember individual skits better than entire performances. “When you really connect with your partners,  it’s fireworks. Even if the audience isn’t laughing, they’re engaged,” says Hagy. 

The unpredictability of the form is an attraction. “As an improviser, you’re being pulled by some product you don’t know,“ says James Wachtel. “There’s no conversation beforehand. There’s no chance for discussion. There’s no plan being made. There are just a couple of basic rules, and then you get out there.”

The founding members of Zoo have been working together since 2004. Players come and go, however. The most recent member is Gbenga Adekunle, an engineering graduate student at the UI who joined last fall. 

The group seems to be ambitious enough and is willing to work in different forums — private parties or events, for example — in addition to their regular club and bar appearances.  They conduct workshops for high school students and are available to do team-building exercises for companies. In the future, they hope to run their own theater where they can, in the words of Aubrey Wachtel, “spread the Improv Revolution.”

To her, improv in general and the troupe in particular are clearly more than just a hobby. “I was just thinking today how far we’ve come in the past four years,“ she says. “Improv gives you confidence in public speaking and in so many things. It comes from your life.”