Photos by Nikiana Medansky
There are few things in life that are weirder than an improvisational comedy show.
And within that, there are few things weirder than a marathon improv show. In this case, a 32-hour marathon improv show.
And even within that, there are few things – maybe even nothing – weirder than the late-night segment of a 32-hour marathon improv show.
But that is exactly what I treated myself to on Friday night (or was it Saturday morning?) at The Torch Theatre, as they held their fourth annual Ghostfest improv comedy marathon.
The show, a fundraiser for the Phoenix Improv Festival, ran from 6 p.m. Friday to 2 a.m. early Sunday. It featured about 95 performers and had a total attendance of just under 200 people during the course of 32 hours.
Of course, most people wanting to attend part of a 32-hour improv marathon would pick the part during normal entertainment hours, maybe the first few hours Friday night or the middle of the afternoon on Saturday. Some might check the lineup for specific comedians or troupes they liked and plan their schedule around that.
I had it a bit trickier. My weekend was already jam-packed with several concerts and Halloween parties, so the only time I had available to attend Ghostfest was the eerie hours between Friday night and Saturday morning.
So at 1:30 a.m. late Friday night/early Saturday morning, I shipped myself down the light rail to The Torch Theatre on Central Avenue just south of Camelback Road. With a can of Rockstar energy drink in one hand and a large bag of snack food in the other, I was committed to stick it out until 8 a.m.
I’d be lying if I said I was wide awake for the whole six hours. I found myself yawning an average of once every 10 minutes or so and even drifted off during a few of the more boring segments. But I made it to 8 a.m., and had a great time doing it.
It isn’t just the audience who struggles to stay awake during a late-night show or marathon – the performers are also battling exhaustion. And while it’s unlikely that someone might crash in the middle of a scene, there is a lot of downtime between performances.
The middle-of-the-night segments of Ghostfest provided the perfect opportunity to demonstrate some improv activities that are usually just warm-ups.
Two examples are Bunny Bunny and Aye Gazimba, in which six or so people gather in a circle and chant words while making corresponding actions. The point is to maintain a rhythm even as the chanting speeds up. The performers did both Bunny Bunny and Aye Gazimba for an astounding and hilarious 10 minutes each.
I found myself enjoying the segments with a specific concept more than the general troupe showcases that just let performers come on stage and improvise scenes without more than a starting prompt. Even 10 minutes of Cacophony of Noise, an assortment of people with an assortment of musical abilities playing an assortment of instruments, was better than basic improvised scenes, especially at 3:30 in the morning.
Another 10-minute segment of the marathon was called the We Are Groot Jam. This time, the performers acted out a scene based on an audience suggestion – mine was third-wave feminism – with the limitation that their dialogue could only consist of variants of the phrase “I am Groot,” from the movie “Guardians of the Galaxy.” The best performers in this segment were able to convey emotion and emphasis through their body language and the tone of their voice, so that even if their words were limited, the audience could still follow the gist of what was going on.
One of my favorite segments was the Educational Rap Jam, another activity based on audience suggestions. Sample prompts this time around included neuroplasticity, nuclear power, object permanence and chemtrails. The performers were tasked with coming up with freestyle raps relating to the prompting topics, which was made even more entertaining by the difficult subject matter.
Finally, one of the strangest and funniest segments, Southern Wisdom, had two performers sit on stools next to each other in the middle of the stage and trade weird statements and anecdotes while sipping on glasses of iced tea. Most of the punchlines, said totally deadpan, were in the format of “Just because someone did this doesn’t make them this.” The two performers were perfect matches for each other, each continuing to top the other with more ridiculous, yet somehow still true, statements without any direction or prompting.
I recognize that this is by no means a complete account of the entirety of Ghostfest. I am just one person, and a flawed, often very tired person at that. But I encourage you to check it out next year, because as long as you like improv or comedy or laughing, there’s bound to be something for you.
Contact the author at kimberly.koerth@asu.edu. Contact the columnist at molly.bilker@asu.edu
