H With its own improvisational performance groups surrounding guests from coast to coasts, Florida Studio Theater turned its Goldstein Cabaret Stage into a venue for spontaneous laughter, July 10-ll. Each hour on the hour 6-11 p.m. Friday and 5-11 Saturday performances of 40-45 minutes led to final jams by members of varied troupes joining their hosts in pure invention a midnight finale for FST's first Improv Festival.
After a completely improvised FST Improv hour, featuring pianist Jim Prosser and Christine Alexander as a rambunctious signer for skits, Goodbye Mailbox (Andie Bolt, Harrison Brown, and Jonathan Smith) from Los Angeles improvised on the subject of travel to London and Paris. This group seemed the toothiest and most nasal in their mildly received presentation.
Next (8 p.m.), "Ao2" (Audience of 2) from New York City livened things up with sketch comedy. Ben Masten and, with guitar, Sam Dingman worked on the theme, "Why Do Women Choose Such Assholes to Date?" Action bios of sorts followed, stressing their childhoods and ending with recent hard life in NYC. Fellow city dwellers Christopher Booth, Julia Darden (puppeteer), Patrick Frankfort, Daniel Kramer, Luis Nunez, Zak Slemmer, and Josh Wolinsky followed with their "City Hall" sketches, puppetry, and musical theater pieces. Their title was also that of their signature musical number. Comedic locales included school, a bus stop (with comic captions illustrating thoughts of those waiting), an old English battle scene and an interactive video game. Their "Game Night," a story told in titles of games, was an audience favorite.
From Atlanta, Dad's Garage staged a seminar studying Ann Landers-like problems submitted by audience to a psycho psychologist Dr. Frapples (Dan Triandiflou). Portraying such issues as self-confidence, addiction to cats and the choice between keeping friend or dog, Z. Gillispie, Matt Horgan, Travis Sharp, and Lucky Yates engaged in action research from which Dr. Frapples drew conclusions. A gal in attendance was brought onstage to give a feminine point of view before Friday night's jam.
Vintage Whine, FST's senior group, consists of Fae Beloff, Lynn Means, Susan Morin, Pula Morrissey, Nanci Rand and sole male George Pochos. It opened Saturday evening's line-up with "a little bit of whine and a whole lot of funny." From Los Angeles, Slave Leia also consists of women who worked on an audience-suggested event. Having
caught only the end of this act, I know only that it had to do with a proposal at a sports event. It was well received.
Available Cupholders from Austin, Texas, and introduced as the only guests accustomed to the heat, based their mini-drama on the
suggested song title, "I Believe I Can Fly." Jeremy Lamb, Ace Manning, and Michael Joplin incorporated backgrounds of the guy who wants to fly on his own. His mother makes him mayonnaise sandwiches, his dead father's encouraging voice comes over his iPod, and his brothers encourage him to pilot and -- in danger of crashing -- use the third wing!
For Boston's Thy Will Be Done, Will Luera and Alison Royer pray they will find love and pray again -- many times -- when answered. The audience provided a memento, a meeting place, and a musical background via a song. This improvised love story stopped short, though it was difficult to tell, since the players tended to mumble.
Booth and Pat (Booth Daniels and, with his guitar, Patrick Frankfort), on the other hand, did their musical parody loud and louder, supplemented by lots of movement.
Orlando's SAK (Mike Carr, Greg Yates, Chris Dinger) asked the crowd to clap and make noises in addition to making suggestions for improvs based on words (peanut butter), meeting place (Starbucks, with a man and woman onstage to start off bits of dialogue), and a crime scene, victim and activity that Greg had to identify from clues given. That he almost didn't make Dweezel Zappa prompted audience animation equal to that on stage.
Sarasota's Lazy Fairy was the last group to perform. Christine Alexander, Tim Beasley, Bobby Brader, Catey Brannan, Chris Friday and Angel Parker played their signature "Pinter Piece" (backward to the start) on the theme of an Anniversary. This segued into Saturday's closing midnight jam.
Rebecca Langford, Director of the 2009 Sarasota Improv Festival, as well as of SFT's basic Improv group, also arranged an appearance Saturday morning by the fledgling Kids Komedy Cabaret. During the day, a full schedule of workshops began with "Longform Improvisation" (by City Hall), "Falling in Love with Your Scene Partner" (by Thy Will Be Done), a basic "Intro" (by FST Improv). From 1 to 3 p.m. Booth and Pat taught "Intro to Musical Improv"; Available Cupholders led "Direct Feedback Boot Camp." Three master classes were held from 3 to 5. Dad's Garage taught "Character Development." Building the Scene was the subject of "SAK." Richard Hopkins, Artistic Director of Florida Studio Theater, conducted a class on Delsarte.
