A cheery group has gathered outside the door of the Improv Institute on Belmont near Western. It’s Fun Night, and for $5 these people, most of them actors on a busman’s holiday, get a chance to improvise together and receive a gentle critique from Tom Hanigan, one of the stars of the institute’s resident company. While they’re waiting for him to arrive, they shake hands. In a few minutes they’ll be humiliating themselves and each other, so it’s best to get acquainted. Conversation turns to sitcoms. A tall, lanky, red-cheeked man in his early 20s plants himself in the middle of the group and does his Lurch impression. Some people laugh, but the guy next to me is worried. He’s never been to Fun Night before, but he’s a serious student of improv and knows the rules. Lurch, he senses, will break a lot of rules.
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Fun Night is to improvisation what open-mike night is to stand-up: a chance for anyone with the guts to get onstage and give it a try. You don’t need to be a professional actor to take part–a familiarity with the basics of improv will do. Those at the institute on the night I attend are a mix of veterans and beginners. A few rush the stage at every chance, others volunteer only rarely. Some are hip college kids in town for the summer, and one looks like a candidate for Dentu-Creme. Most, though, are day-jobbers age 20 to 40 with an itch for the stage. They did a little acting in school, took a class here and there, or just think they can do it.
Hanigan divides the evening up into different segments to allow everyone an equal chance. The first game is scene tag, intended to warm the actors up. Three pairs of actors are assigned identities. On this night the first is an exorcist and client, the second a farmer and bank repossessor, and the third an air conditioner repairman and office manager. While one pair improvises a scene, the other two pairs listen for a line of dialogue that will fit their characters. When they hear one, they clap, take the stage, and begin with the line the previous team ended with. When the exorcist’s client tells her healer, “You have such a gentle touch,” the office manager claps and begins a scene, suggestively telling the air conditioner repairman, busy with his screwdriver, the same thing. It’s a quick game with lots of entrances and exits, the theater equivalent of wind sprints.
