Thank you!

Subtle mastery from Adsit, Lutz at CIF

via the Chicago Tribune, April 7, 2013
More than most performers, they can seem to make amusing each other their primary focus, and if the audience happens to get something out of it, well that’s just fine, too. This isn’t a knock. Not every show needs to feel like a metaphorical embrace. Watching the two tinker around, their thought process laid bare, felt like eavesdropping, and it was thoroughly absorbing.

• CIF16 / Second City SkyBox shows on Gigity.tv
• CIF16 / Second City deMaat Studio shows on Gigity.tv

My big takeaway from Virgin Daiquiri is that I don’t see them nearly enough.  They’re smart, funny, and quick.

They asked the audience to shout out “Something mean someone has said to you”.  Their favorite response: “You need liposuction”.  The audience member added that it was her sister who had said it.

The eight women started a group song about Women Supporting Women/Sisters Supporting Sisters, which turned into forty minutes or so of scenes about weddings, sister wives, Botox, negligent parenting, and alcoholism.  The scenes were called back in no discernible order, and heightened and explored at each callback.  Overall, just a really good example of what I think long form improv looks like when it’s done well.

Finishing that bill was The Better Half — a duo made up of Lucas Neff (TV’s Raising Hope) and Craig Cackowski (Community, and other things).  Both of these guys established themselves here before going to Hollywood, although a few years apart.

Their show was very tight, basically three concurrent two person scenes.  The suggestion given was “anus”. The performers initially blanched, but then Neff and Cackowski turned out a nice piece that started with two guys in the men’s room of a bar, after their “Triumvirate of Tex-Mex”, while their dates waited for them to return.  As the dates got increasingly more drunk, they were hit on by a pair of much younger dudes “Hopin’ to score with the old ladies”. It was very funny.

After that, I helped Stacy Smith show some of the International performers the DeMaat theater, where they’ll be performing on Saturday.  During the walk over, one of the frei.wild commented that he was surprised that some of the humor was so blue.  He’d heard American improv was very clean.  This led to a conversation about exploring baser instincts in art.  Germans are fun!

These guys are super accessible and interesting, so if you see them around say hi.

I ran into a friend that was coming out of one the Training Center classrooms, and she invited the Europeans to come with us to watch the third act of the Mainstage, but they ended up going elsewhere.  The set was great, though.  Not a CIF function, but worth mentioning.

I actually missed the shows on Monday because I had a previous engagement, but I did go to the after-party at the Annoyance.  I had fun anyway.  Seeing people I hadn’t seen in a while, and meeting people who I thought I already knew.  For whatever reason, I have a lot of trouble matching faces with names unless I’ve had a fairly deep conversation with the people in question.  And then I can only retain those about half the time. So if I ever talk to you and seem distracted, it’s because I’m burning mental CPU processes as I try to permanently match your face to your name in my head.  Then there are some people whose names I’ve decided just don’t match what I think they should be, so I have to work extra hard to commit them.  If I don’t remember your name immediately after meeting you, I apologize now.

I had a lot of conversations with people whose names I can never remember but really enjoy talking to.  I’m always pleased by how bright and engaged improvisors are.  Granted, there are a lot of “bits”, but they’re usually at least smart bits.

When I co-created the Chicago Improv Festival with Frances Callier, it was very important to me that we have at least one improv act from another country in CIF #1 (1998). That year, we had “On the Spot” an improv team from Montreal. I’ve been proud that every year since we’ve always at least one international team playing at CIF.

As the years progressed, we added more and more international teams or solo international improvisers playing at CIF. By the time we got to 5 countries playing at CIF, I came up with the idea of putting them altogether for a single jam show called “1 World on 1 Stage” and we’ve been doing it part of CIF ever since.

That first year was exciting for me as an improv geek to watch players from around the world not speak the same language or share the same national reference points, but by using gibberish, I found that all the improvisers shared the same culture and basic training of improv’s “Yes And” truism which went beyond words and into a singular understanding of play.

That first show was super fun for me, the players and happily for the audience too. It was if everyone was filled with the spirit of improvisation and the experience made us all feel lighter and brighter. We also all laughed a heck of lot too.

Ever since, every year, the “1 World on 1 Stage” is always one of my favorite CIF shows and seeing everyone play together always becomes one of the payoffs for me with all the hard work we do before and during CIF. Every year the show is amazing and wonderful and it reminds me why I keep doing this.

I’ve also experienced our audiences be blown away be what they see. I’ve had veteran improvisers tell me that they will always remember either playing in the show or watching it. I’ve seen the international improvisers make new friends with each other and with us, the Chicago improvisers.

That’s part of it too. Chicago is the birthplace and Mecca for modern improvisation and as such it’s both an honor and a duty to be able to help facilitate the artistic dialogue between Chicago’s improv community and the world’s improv community. It’s great to be part of that nexus point for this one special week.

This year, we’ve got more international improvisers playing at CIF than ever before. We’ve set a new CIF record with 10 countries participating in CIF 2013 (America, Canada, Finland, Germany, India, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, and Russia). This is as many countries as ever participated in the International Theatre Festival of Chicago’s biggest year and now we’ve matched them.

If you are looking for a great show to see tonight (especially since the Adsit & Eveleth show is sold out), come to The Playground at 7pm, for the “1 World on 1 Stage” show with players from all the countries playing together (the photo is of them in today’s rehearsal). They will be improvising in their language and in English, but don’t sweat it if you don’t know their language, just watch them play and you will understand what’s going on. After all, funny is funny, and humans are humans. Us humans, we all play, no matter where we come from or what language we speak. To play is universal and to play together is divine.

- Jonathan Pitts, Executive Producer & Co-Founder, Chicago Improv Festival

As of today, Tuesday, April 2, the following Chicago Improv Festival shows are now sold out:

Tuesday, April 2
Midwest Independent Film Festival: Comedic Shorts @ Landmark Cinema

Wednesday, April 3
Adsit & Eveleth @ Second City ETC

Thursday, April 4
Messing with a Friend @ Annoyance Theater

Sunday, April 7
30 Rock Show @ Second City UP Comedy Club

Note: Tickets are still available for all other Chicago Improv Festival shows.

This year’s Chicago Improv Festival is the largest CIF we’ve ever done. We’ve got 154 acts from 9 countries performing in 100 shows on 20 stages over 7 days. That’s over 765 improv-artists from around the world improvising here in Chicago, aka the birthplace and Mecca of modern improvisation. We’ve been the world’s largest improv festival before and this year we are the world’s largest improv festival again.

This year’s lineup contains a staggering amount of improv and improvisers. Deciding which show to see can be an over-whelming and confusing experience for the audience. That’s why we’ve created the 10 different artistic categories so that instead of having to decide between 154 possible selections, you only have to choose between 10 categories.

All you have to do is just look at what type of improv or theatre or entertainment you like out of our 10 categories and then choose your own improv adventure. We also set the schedule up so that most of the acts performing on Friday are also performing at the exact same time and same venue on Saturday. Now you don’t have to choose between shows you might want to see and wonder if you made the right choice. Now you can choose to see both shows and see one on Friday and the other on Saturday.

In order to give you more info, we also included notes from the artistic categories’ curators, so you can read about what the curators who choose the acts thinks is cool, fun, special and unique about each of the acts. We’ve also set up this year’s website to make your selections easier than ever before.

As the audience, it’s your energy, your laughter, and your surprise that lifts the shows over the top and helps make them magical. The great thing about improv is that unlike comedy, stand-up, or theatre, no one knows where the laughs are; no one knows where the best moments will be and how to play them. We only know it when it happens and as it happens as this moment of discovery occurs between you the audience and the players onstage. Once it happens, like sports, the experience moves into wonderful and unpredictable entertainment.

Why did we do all this? Because as Viola said, you are the most revered members of this whole festival. Without you attending our shows, instead of being the world’s largest improv festival, we’d be the world’s largest improv rehearsal (and there’s no fun in that).

So come to this year’s CIF and see a show or two or three. We’ve got shows all 7 nights of this week. We got the best improvisers in the world waiting to entertain you and play for you. We’ve got shows happening all over this town. But we can’t do it without you. We could, but it is nowhere as near as fun as when you are here. Your energy and responses makes every show different and unique and fun. Did I mention you’ll have fun? You will! So welcome to CIF’s Improv City: Population 154 acts & You!

- Jonathan Pitts, Executive Producer and Co-Founder of the Chicago Improv Festival