The Theatre Classroom — Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre

March 13th, 2013

Comedic performances in improv

The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre is dedicated to fostering both an appreciation and an education of the arts through affordable and high quality comedic performances and classes. The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre opened February 4, 1999 at 161 West 22nd Street, the former home of the New Harmony, a strip club reported to be seedier than seedy. The UCBT quickly became the place for great, cutting-edge comedy. Casting directors, agents, and journalists all began to flock to the seventy-four-seat theater in Chelsea to see the best comic talent in the city.

So why am I giving you a brief history of an improvisational group? Well, several weeks ago I had the privilege of attending another performance by this group at the University of Montana. One of my students, who has taken all my MOLLI classes on theatre, never misses a chance to see improv and always calls me up to join her — we had attended our first performance several years ago. MOLLI is the Montana Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, an opportunity for folks over fifty to take “classes” on a variety of subjects for six weeks, one and a half hours per week, with no papers or homework. As our brochure says, “Curiosity Never Retires.” Anyway, we had a wonderful time and I would like to describe how their improvisation is a bit different from the traditional improv we do in school. You might want to try it with a more advanced group.

There were three performers. After introducing themselves and telling just a bit about the UCBT, they asked the audience for anything interesting that had happened to them recently. Hands were raised and they picked three folks: one who lived in a trailer in the woods for two years without running water or electricity, a gentlemen who was the only male belly dancer in a group of women, and a woman who was a cleaning maintenance person at Wal-Mart in Bellingham, Washington. While she was cleaning the bathroom, a much older woman had come in and suggested she would make much more money as a prostitute!

The performers then asked the audience by a show of hands which idea they should improvise. The audience chose the maintenance worker. The actors then asked her to come up front, and for about ten minutes, all three interviewed her about her job at Wal-Mart and what she was doing now.

Then for more than an hour they improvised, non-stop, everything she had said. There were at least fifteen “stories” and the common thread was that the Canadians who came down to this Wal-Mart in droves were very messy. In at least three-fourths of the improvisations, an imaginary door was shut whenever they were talking about the Canadians. It was hilarious. I know I cannot do their talent justice, but it was amazing. They also did at least one improvisation based on the other two suggestions.

During the last twenty minutes of their show, they improvised tweets that people had gotten. I didn’t feel that was very successful as they weren’t nearly as interesting or funny as becoming a prostitute! It was great, however, that they were using today’s technology, something I think you can use in the classroom, provided cell phones are allowed. Know, though, that they can be and probably are a nuisance.