May 4, 2004 - A Night at the Improv

My sister arrived just a few minutes before my dad, and the four of us decided to go to the local Bertucci's, because they offer great salads with dinner, and my sister always wants a good salad.

I ended up boxing up half of my meal, which is par for the course for me in restaurants anymore. My sister also boxed up part of her meal and told me she'd leave it behind for me to have later.

Then we all went back to my place and hung out for awhile with my dog, Una, before heading into Center City.

Comedysportz is in a little place called the Playground, which is on the 20th block of Sansom Street. We got there a little too early, and they weren't ready to take our admission just yet. So we walked down the block to the Crimson Moon Coffee House, a place The Gryphon knew about, and got some Vietnamese coffee, which is like a really sweet espresso.

We got back, and by then I was in high spirits, being silly. Somebody, I think it was Dad, asked if we were in the right place, and the ticket taker said, "Yes, if you're here to see comedy."

I said, "What about mud wrestling."

He claimed this was the place for that, too.

"That explains the lack of a mud pit," I said.

I didn't know quite to expect, even though I'd seen live improv before, when the Second City touring company came to Penn State during my undergrad years.

They were divided into two teams, went through a number of different games and competed for points. At the beginning of the show, we were encouraged to buy a pennant for one of the teams and to cheer for them, as loyal fans.

The crowd was primarily younger people in their 20s, although there was also a group of 30-something women at the end of our aisle.

On the New Jersey Cows team were captain Eric Van Wie, Don Montrey and Josh Rubenstein. On the Philadelphia Fighting Amish team were captain Deborah Rosen, Fred Siegel and Brian McCann. We had red banners, so we were cheering for the Cows.

They started out with a really difficult game, I thought, called What Are You Doing? You start with an activity, suggested by the audience. The player who initiates has to be doing anything but that activity, and when the player on the other team asks what they're doing, they give the audience suggestion.

The opposing team player then has to do the action just mentioned, but when the first team player asks them what they are doing, they have to say anything but what they're actually doing. To make it even more difficult, they stay within the theme suggested by the first activity.

So for example, if the first activity is eating honey, the player might be swimming. They're asked what they're doing, and say "Eating honey." The other player has to act as if he's eating honey but when asked what he's doing, he might say, "Chasing bees to get honey." His opponent then has to act like he's chasing bees, but when asked what he's doing, give another answer.

The game was very quick and very difficult to follow. I thought they started out setting the bar extremely high.

Another game the Amish performed was Sing It, which is a game where they act out a scene based on an audience suggestion, in this case, a sunburn. At different times, the referee, Bobbi Block, stops the actors and commands them "Sing it." They have to sing the last line they'd said and turn it into a song.

They had a lot of fun with that one, with Fred Siegel immobilized by a sunburn as his wife, played by Deborah Rosen, calls herself his "unlucky charm" and packs her bags to leave.

Then all is changed when a strange salve salesman, played by Brian McCann, shows up and promises to make everything all right again. And it really seemed like he might, until he pulled out the chainsaw...

Beastie Rap is a competitive game based on the style of rap done by the Beastie Boys, where you have one rapper rapping and then the background rappers finishing his sentence. In this case, they had to stick to a rhyme scheme, suggested by a word from the audience and the lead rapper had to rap a sentence leading up to a word his teammates would have to shout it. Fred Siegel was particularly good at this one, giving his teammates such good hints they rarely faltered.

In contrast, Don Montrey of the New Jersey Cows got confused several times and, for instance, called out "flam" when the word was clearly "lamb."

But Don Montrey's skills lay elsewhere, as he soon demonstrated in one of my favorites, a game called Five Things. Don left the room, taking an audience member with him so that she could attest to the fact that he couldn't hear anything.

While he was out of the room, Bobbi directed the audience to come up with five activities. We started out with playing basketball, feeding a baby, rock climbing, sharpening pencils and flying a kite. But to make them more difficult to guess, she had us add more to it. So it was, for example, playing basketball with a baby in an outhouse against the Beatles, or sharpening celery while wearing scuba gear and a burka.

When Don came back in, Eric Van Wie and Josh Rubenstein had to get him to understand the actions by only pantomiming and using gibberish.

In this game, they particularly enjoyed one of my suggestions. The activity was feeding a baby, but Bobbi said, "Let's feed the baby something else." Someone called out "beer."

"OK," Bobbi said. "Let's make the baby a celebrity."

"Liza Minelli!" I called out. Not only was this funny in and of itself, but it was actually pretty easy for them to act out. When they got to that point, Josh sang gibberish to the tune of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and then Eric Van Wie pretended he was a baby being born from Josh. Josh pantomimed handing this baby to Don, who understood that it was a baby Liza Minelli.

The other things he had to guess were rock climbing a pile of meat while using three arms and flying a stingray using licorice as the string.

Amazingly, Don got all but the last one. He only missed the stingray one because he said string cheese instead of licorice. Still, very impressive teamwork.

Some of the other games were a bit easier, such as Hey Waiter, where an audience member came up to be the person being waited on. Based on audience suggestions, she would complain about something in her soup, and each player took turns coming through and making a joke based on it.

So, for example, my sister suggested Shakespeare and in response to "Waiter, there's Shakespeare in my soup" they came up with such groaners as, "That's much ado about nothing," or "I'll get you a Hamlet instead."

Then there was Sing for Your Supper, performed by the New Jersey Cows. They had to sing a song, based on an audience suggestion for a title. Bobbi asked us to come up with a title of a song we'd never heard. I called out, "I Love the French." The players sang and she conducted, pointing to different singers in turn, at which point they had to jump in with another line.

They had a lot of fun with this one, coming up with the chorus, "We're French! We surrender! We're French! We surrender!" Sung, of course, in a silly French accent.

One of the games earlier in the evening was Countdown. They acted out a scene based on an audience suggestion, in this case, a playground. So Eric and Don pretended to be kids taking turns jumping off a swing, and then Josh runs in and yells at them for getting themselves hurt. But while the scene initially took 90 seconds, they had to progressively play it out in less and less time, down to 45 seconds and then 22 seconds and then a ridiculously fast 12 seconds. They managed to keep the essential elements but just deliver it faster and faster with less dialogue.

Another game that the Amish did at one point was Director's Cut, where they acted out a scene and whenever the other team told them "cut to..." they had to act out the suggestion. It was a scene where Deborah was going out on the town and Brian was arriving to be Fred's baby-sitter. So when she said, for example, "Don't give him any peanut butter," the other team said, "Cut to the last time he had peanut butter." Fred immediately grabbed his throat, bulged out his eyes and collapsed.

Although there were plenty of props available, they didn't use too many of them, with the exception of during the Beastie Rap, when they all pulled out funny hats and glasses and such. This particular group seemed very comfortable with having the comedy come out of the situation and what they were saying and doing. They'd turn themselves into a character without need of a prop. For example, Josh Rubenstein did a very convincing Jewish grandmother, despite his dark beard!

Eric Van Wie did a lot of funny faces and used a sort of physical humor and delivery that was often reminiscent of Jim Carrey, who must be one of his idols.

In part due to our backing, and probably to the "I Love the French" suggestion, which earned them points after their successful singing, the New Jersey Cows won for the night. We all cheered, but we cheered for the other team, as well.

As we left, all the players lined up by the door and slapped five with everyone leaving, as if it had been a sports event.

All in all, I had a terrific time and would definitely go back again. What's more, I'll probably look into the workshops they teach, which could be a great way to get in the game, so to speak.

 

More on my dad and sister's visit:

April 30, 2004 - Cruising with Murphy

May 3 - Stepping Out

May 7, 2004 - Showered with Gifts

More fun at ComedySportz Philadelphia:

May 1, 2006 - Jorking Baby Kangaroos

November 14, 2005 - Interactive Improv

Moral:
Teams with me on their side tend to win. Except when they don't.