Comedy free-for-all
The improv game they're playing is "Zulu." The audience yells the names of categories -- "breakfast cereals," "super heroes," "degrees at Georgia Tech" -- and six members of the Comedy Response Unit must deliver funny examples for each ("Super Crunchy Noodles," "Sideburn Lad," "electrical engineering.")
The evening's host, Cameron Smith, on roller skates and sporting a Superman chest plate, rules over this game of comedic responses, but the audience decides when an answer isn't funny enough by yelling for the perpetrator to "die."
Caldwell is the first to go. Her answer for "super heroes" ("Bitch Ain't Funny") gets a resounding veto from the packed 100-seat house. The fast-paced skit goes on, but Caldwell slumps in the theater's titular Red Chair, taking a short breather from a long night of improvisational comedy.
To hear some tell it, audiences in general are yelling a collective "Die!" at Atlanta theater at large. The past two years have seen the troubling trend of artistic directors leaving the city, while theaters blame dwindling audiences and lack of corporate support for financial woes and personnel problems.
Yet, the city's improvisational comedy scene seems to be blossoming, with packed houses and a growing spirit of collaboration between new and old troupes alike.
"I think improv is just getting more popular overall," says Sean Daniels, artistic director for Dad's Garage Theatre. "Stand-up tends to be dying out, and people want something a little riskier. Also, we take off our shirts a lot in the shows. You won't see that anywhere else."
Riskier indeed, and certainly more interactive than traditional theater, which may explain the medium's magnetism to the 18-30 set. The Comedy Response Unit, for example, goes to absurd lengths to engage its audience.
"One great night we went out and started pulling people up on stage and ended up getting the whole audience on stage. The players came out and sat in the chairs in the audience, and we took pictures of them on stage," Caldwell says. Judging from the packed Friday nights at the Red Chair or the long lines at Dad's Garage, the risks seem to be paying off.
For the uninitiated, improv comedy is just what it sounds like -- an onstage form of sketch comedy that's unscripted, unrehearsed and typically unpredictable. The medium gained exposure in the '60s and mid-'70s due partly to the popularity of Chicago's Second City Theatre and its later incarnation as "SCTV." Counting among its alumni notables such as Dustin Hoffman, John Belushi, John Candy and Martin Short, Second City paved the way for "Saturday Night Live" and many other similar sketch comedy shows. More recently, the American version of the BBC's TV show "Whose Line Is It Anyway" has introduced improv's game-centered format to mainstream audiences, establishing it as a zany alternative to traditional stand-up.
Improv is certainly not new to Atlanta. One group, Laughing Matters, has been around for more than 15 years and still boasts a handful of its original players.
"We are the vagabond nomad comedy group of Atlanta," says Allison Gilmore who, along with Tommy Futch, Emilio Perey and Gary Anthony Williams, helped start the troupe in 1985. Laughing Matters was born from a series of comedy classes taught by Robert Lowe (who Gilmore calls "the father of Atlanta improv, which would make me the godmother.")
Laughing Matters has long been known for its popular shows at Manuel's Tavern and also does regular gigs at both locations of Dave & Buster's. The secret to its success? "Trust," says Gilmore. "I know that you could put us on a flatbed truck in some small town in south Alabama and we'd entertain. We have a lot of respect for each other's talent."
The game is called "Slide Show." Using a suggestion from the audience, players assume wacky frozen poses on stage with the lights out. When the lights come up, another player has to explain what's going on in the "photo."
On this randy Friday night at Dad's Garage, Lucky Yates is playing narrator. The visibly buzzed audience has suggested the slide show center on a honeymoon in Thailand. Yates manages to keep the story going as Marc Cram and Chris Blair bend their bodies into increasingly improbable poses.
With the final photo, Yates essentially dares the players to reveal what happened in the honeymoon suite. The lights come up and ensemble member George Faughnan is suddenly and inexplicably naked, with a lone tubesock saving the crowd from full frontal. The audience explodes.
If Gilmore is the godmother of Atlanta improv, the guys at Dad's Garage Theatre are the unruly cousins who ring doorbells and run away and host secret meetings in their tree house. The Inman Park den of Gen-X hilarity has gained a national reputation for its high-profile plays, most notably shows by Trey Parker of "South Park" and the late Graham Chapman of Monty Python. But the theater's core following remains its obsessive improv audience.
"In the beginning it was hard to get anyone to come see our mainstage shows," says Chris Blair, improv director and one of the theater's founders. "We were known mainly for the improv. Now it's kind of flip-flopped."
Dad's Garage considers TheatreSports, a patented form of improv that pits players against each other for points, its flagship format. Two teams compete in scenes fueled by audience suggestions. Those scenes are then scored by a panel of judges, who also have the power to make players wear "the Scum Box" (for unbecoming language) or to end a scene that's boring.
Beyond TheatreSports, Blair says the troupe has developed its own style since its inception in 1995. The theater just launched the fourth season of its improvisational soap opera "Scandal!," this time set two days in the future on a space station orbiting above Little Five Points. Blair, in alien drag with blue face and Spock ears, plays the medical officer Dr. Shika.
"'Scandal!' is probably my favorite improv," says Daniels, who plays Cmdr. James T. Blanket, the station's curmudgeonly captain. "I love spending six months creating a character and then having [him] shot in a season finale cliff hanger. That and it satisfies my long urge to actually be on '90210.' This is as close as I'll get."
"Scandal!" and TheatreSports rope in sold-out crowds who also come back for mainstage productions. "We can talk about our plays during our improv shows to groups that wouldn't normally see theater," Blair says. "It's getting them to come see theater through the backdoor. The stigma of 'theater' isn't there."
The game is called "Hitchhiker." Kendra Myers pretends to drive at night and gradually picks up passengers -- each of them increasingly wacky characters. First comes an exhausted Santa's elf, followed by a flasher, followed by a coked-up Belinda Carlisle.
But here's the kicker: Every time a new passenger comes on board, everyone on the bus must adopt their mannerisms, and none of them know what's coming next. Soon all 11 women on stage are skipping like Shirley Temple or joined in a round of "We Got the Beat."
Escaping the "stigma" of theater is exactly what the Comedy Response Unit has in mind. Six months after renovating an old pizza joint off Northside Drive to create the Red Chair Theater, the 2-year-old troupe is in the process of going nonprofit and putting up its first non-improv show. It's an ambitious project for an 11-person group that, until recently, had no members over the age of 26.
"There's a lot of people who see improv who don't see theater," says Caldwell, co-creative director for CRU. "We're doing theater for somebody who isn't into theater, maybe. It's a crossover."
Not that these comedians are leaving improv behind. Caldwell says experimentation is at the core of their mission, which may explain the not-ready-for-primetime bands who warm up the crowd before shows, or the CRU's penchant for getting the audience involved in unexpected ways.
Another goal for the troupe is building Atlanta's improv community to the level of cities like Chicago or New York. While attending the first ever Funny Women's Conference in Chicago last August, CRU members Caldwell and Traci Redmond had a chance meeting with Allison Gilmore and the women of Laughing Matters, which led to an unusual collaboration back in Atlanta. The two groups, along with Kendra Myers of Dad's Garage, formed the Gorgeous Ladies of Comedy, an all-girl improv group that performs monthly at various venues. None of the members plan to abandon their core troupes.
"In order to get the improv comedy groups in Atlanta to work together more collaboratively, the women had to start it, which is how most things get started anyway," says Gilmore.
And that spirit of synergy seems to be growing. In its upcoming "Red Chair Affair," set for Feb. 18, the Comedy Response Unit plans to bring in performers from other improv groups as well as artists from bluemilk and some local musicians. The event aims to increase exposure for both the Red Chair Theater and Atlanta improv in general. "Improv is not as supported as theater or even something that's as respected," Caldwell says. "But I think it's starting to get respect in Atlanta."
Daniels sums it up like this: "I can honestly say that there are so many more quality improvisers in town now than there were five years ago. It's like those pizzas that are already in a pizza crust. It just keeps getting better."
"The Red Chair Affair" is Feb. 18 at 6:30 p.m. The Comedy Response Unit performs Friday and Saturday nights at the Red Chair Theater, 662 11th St. 404-872-4242. www.comedyresponseunit.com
"Scandal!" plays Fridays at 10:30 p.m. and TheatreSports plays Saturdays at 10:30 p.m. at Dad's Garage Theatre, 280 Elizabeth St. Tickets are $10. 404-688-6644. www.dadsgarage.com
Laughing Matters performs at Manuel's Tavern, (602 N. Highland Ave., $10) the first Saturday of every month, Dave & Buster's Marietta ($7) the first Friday of the month and Dave & Buster's Gwinnett ($7) the second Friday. 404-681-1378. www.laughingmatters.com
