If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Where can I go in downtown Phoenix once a year to laugh so hard for an entire weekend that I can’t move for the next three days because my diaphragm is in such exquisite pain?” — be not afraid. There is something out there for you.
Now, let’s be honest. We’ve all asked ourselves that exact question, probably verbatim. And the answer, at least if we’re talking this past weekend, lies in the 14th annual Phoenix Improv Festival, where players from across the United States come to Phoenix and put on their best characters for a captive crowd.
For those who may not know, improv is a type of theater performance, generally comedy, where performers act out improvised scenes, without a set or generally much of a plan. Improv theater can be immensely entertaining if it’s done well and immensely disappointing if it’s not.
The Phoenix Improv Festival has been running since April 2002, said Jose Gonzalez, who is an original member of the festival. The event was originally organized by an improv group called the Barrow Gang, of which Gonzalez was a member. It started at the Metro Theater in Scottsdale, which no longer exists, with two other groups, Jester’Z and ComedySportz Phoenix (now known as Apollo 12).
The festival, now in its 14th year, has grown vastly, primarily from the push of those in the improv community in Phoenix, Gonzalez said. The Torch Theatre on Central Avenue just south of Camelback Road now organizes the festival. The Torch as well as the Phoenix Improv Festival crew reach out to performers and promote the festival through social media and other grassroots venues to help the event grow.
Several years ago, the festival moved into the Herberger Theater Center, which Gonzalez stressed as a particularly important element of the festival and one the staff is lucky to have. Jacque Arend, one of the festival producers, shared Gonzalez’s perspective.
“We want to put them on the most beautiful stage,” Arend said. “If we treat our performers like that, they treat the stage like they’re brilliant.”
This year’s festival played Thursday, Friday and Saturday and featured local Arizona performers as well as troupes from Wisconsin, New York, California, Pennsylvania and other states. Saturday’s main stage show featured a strong mix of local and out-of-state acts, and the whole performance was side-splitting.
Each troupe was on for about half an hour. Most of the shows were short-form improv, in which actors created a variety of unrelated or loosely related scenes. Other groups, such as Honey, the troupe from New York, used its time to develop a story, featuring recurring characters and a coherent storyline.
All the performers were spectacular, and the variety between the performances was surprising, as new troupes brought refreshing differences in format to the stage. One troupe, White Out, was a duo group that used storytelling and short, poetic lines to divide up their scenes.
Parts of the show dragged, as any improv show with a variety of troupes may be wont to do. Some troupes were more energetic or “on-the-ball” than others. This is, perhaps, the difficulty with improv. Sometimes, improvisation falls flat, or a show simply lacks freshness or cohesiveness. While this may have been the case occasionally, in general the show stayed vibrant and hilarious.
The standout group of the night was a pair from San Diego known as Pick and Roll. The two men of Pick and Roll were spectacular character actors, lending their improv a multidimensional feel. They were quick to react; the first scene they played, between a dictator and his right-hand man, felt like a well-rehearsed scene from an excellent comedic play. At one point, the men used humor that played on their sizes, as the shorter of the two complained about how difficult it was for his character to be a huge person while the other complained: “It’s not easy being short.”
Clever character acting — which comes from creating both compelling dialogue and realistic body language — alongside quick wits is key to excellent improv. Pick and Roll exemplified those attributes, but they were present among the many troupes that performed.
While excellent improv may be key to the Phoenix Improv Festival, at the heart of the event is its sense of community. It is smaller and more intimate than a lot of improv festivals, said Max McCal of San Francisco troupe The Recchia, who has attended a variety of festivals. He felt comfortable and understood exactly where to go during the festival, he said.
“You never feel adrift in a sea of a foreign city,” McCal said.
And the community created by the festival is why Arend got — and stayed — involved, she said.
“I believed in it,” Arend said. “I believed in the product. I saw how it made people feel, and how it made me feel.”
It’s important to keep in mind the way that art and entertainment continues to reflect the world around us. While improv is one of the only ways to keep yourself smiling so much in one night your cheeks hurt afterward, it’s also an important part of the artistic fabric of any city. And, Gonzalez said, the metropolitan Phoenix community has shown a great devotion to providing a space for improv theater.
“I think it adds a different strand to the cultural texture we have here,” Gonzalez said.
Contact the columnist at molly.bilker@asu.edu
