Improv player Spencer Langston peers in the mouth of player Leslie Lillie-Hamilton as part of an improvisational scene involving dentistry during Sky Performing Arts’ Wednesday night Improv group, which is small and happy to accept more players.
Photo by Jim Scolman
MONROE — If you can hold a conversation, you can improv.
On Wednesday nights in the Wagner Performing Arts Center at 639 W. Main St., the community theatre group Sky Performing Arts (SPA)’s Improv Team, currently a handful of members, sharpen their acting skills using quick-witted replies and on-the-spot thinking.
The group invites anyone interested to join their Improv Team Wednesday nights from 7-9 p.m. for workshops at no charge.
“There’s improvements happening every single day that you practice. You always discover something new, whether it’s about your ability or yourself,” Spencer Langston, an Improv Team member and aspiring actor, said.
SPA’s art director, Alexandra Clark, is a firm believer that improv skills are “really important for actors” and teaches to “think on your feet, listen and pivot quickly.”
“Even with memorized scripts things can go wrong,” Clark said.
Beginning around six months ago, the Improv Team’s ultimate goal for their workshops is to open for SPA’s production of “Puss ‘N Boots” starting on May 9.
Caleb Ponce is the enthusiastic brains behind the operation and is the scheduling coordinator for the Improv Team. Using his past experience at Western Washington University with the Dead Parrots Society improv comedy troupe, Ponce guides his fellow improv players through multiple games. Afterward, the group provides
feedback to help each other strengthen their skills.
“A lot of people have bad habits that they don’t even know about because they haven’t done improv like this before,” Ponce said. “It’s mostly working on that skill so that when we do do this in front of an audience that … we have a little bit of rapport, we know what the other is kind of like, what their style is and then we can kind of work off that.”
Typically, short-form improv games range from 20 seconds to five minutes. Long-form games, such as “Montage,” last for as long as necessary. The team splits their two-hour workout into an hour of each form of games.
“One of our long form ones we call ‘Montage.’ We get a bunch of suggestions in our head, like what we would ask an audience if we were doing a show,” Ponce said. “We do a scene and once that scene feels like it’s over to one of the people that’s on the side, they’ll run across with their arm. That’s called a ‘wipe’ and that ends the scene and that person starts a new scene.”
The suggestions that get built into a round of Montage are atypical of what one may think. Starting with a base word, or “A”, one scene member uses word connections to get from “A to D”, the “D” then becomes the “A” of the next person. This continues until everyone in the two to three person scene has taken a turn. Each member’s “D” is then added with the original “A” to form a list of suggestions for the scene.
Montage is done sporadically, where the scene elements can change on a whim and the actors have to adapt accordingly. Formed from suggestions, you get topics such as “Keto Floral Chicken,” a vegan chicken restaurant chain, and an explanation of one improv member’s romantic vampire rendezvous in France. That was one explored during the game on Feb. 26 — aided by the uproarious laughter from the group.
Ponce asserted that the social aspect was his favorite part of doing improv. “Getting to meet people that are also, you know, funny-minded people. When everyone around you is kind of in that same head space, it’s really nice.”
A common misconception about improv is that it must be comedic, he said. Any improvised acting situation is considered improv regardless of content.
The workout as a whole emitted a laid-back, semi-structured atmosphere while still accomplishing the SPA Improv Team’s evening goals.
Welcome to all regardless of skill or experience, the group hopes to inspire others to join. Even if you just want to come see what happens during an improv workout, the team is open to anyone curious. No participation required.
“There’s plenty of film actors … who are phenomenal at improv. They started out in improv groups,” Langston said. “There’s a lot of their movie takes where they just ended up in the cut because of their wit or creativity.”
You never know, watching or participating in improv may spark a new interest or a new career path.
They say to be “SPA-taneous” and see for yourself.
Improv: Wednesdays 7-9 p.m., Wagner Center, 639 W. Main.
