With the closure of HUGE Theater last year, the Twin Cities Improv Festival has a new home - Phoenix Theater in Uptown. For four days, you can watch improv troupes from here in the Twin Cities (and we have a lot of great ones) as well as troupes from around the country and even some from other countries. I attended the first, all-local, night of the festival and had a great time watching some beloved familiar improvisors and some new-to-me improvisors. Each had their own spin on the artform, most started with a suggestion or two from the audience and they took that somewhere unexpected. The Phoenix is a great welcoming location (despite the never-ending construction on Hennepin), with snacks and drinks (including espresso drinks) sold in the cozy lobby. Keep reading for my thoughts on the eight improv troupes I saw (two or three troupes are grouped together in each set, with up to four sets a night), and click here for the schedule of shows continuing through Sunday.
Set #1:
- Soap-prov - just what it sounds like, an improvised soap opera. As a lifelong soap fan I can say they really got the overly dramatic tone and included several tropes. Our soap was called Days of the Garden and featured a wealthy family that owned a vineyard, a peony pruning competition, multiple romances, and awkward family interactions.
- Sad Songs for Happy People - Hannah Wydeven of the Shrieking Harpies (more on them later) sings improvised songs based on audience suggestions. Sad songs, angry songs, love songs, all made up on the spot!
- Mud Coven - 3/5 of this improv troupe performed a form of improv they called "waiting for Rita and Heather." Lauren Anderson, Taj Ruler, and Beth Gibbs improvised some hilarious skits around the idea of waiting.
Set #2:
- Where I Am Now - perhaps the only solo improv I've ever seen, that was also silent improv! Gregory Parks of Blackout Improv gave us a quick update of where he is now (nostalgia, finding wisdom in retrospect, and enjoying "geek shit"), asked for a few audience suggestions around those themes, and then improvised some delightful movement-based scenes.
- The Bearded Company - simply the best at creating full, complete, hilarious stories around a theme. I don't even remember what the audience suggestion was, but somehow they told a compelling and ridiculous story about a baker's prison, that morphed into a Hallmark Christmas movie.
- Improv Movement Project - another movement-based troupe, IMP creates scenes around an audience member's memory or story. And they simply could not have asked for a better one than the person whose friend had Lady Gaga over to her house when she was in town recently with her Minnesotan fiancé. I'm not sure what the scenes had to do with that, but all were wonderfully whimsical, physical, and fun.
Set #3:
- Babe Train - these four women improvised a sweet and silly love story around the idea of a crush. We watch a couple meet, fall in love, and then flash forward decades to see where they end up.
- The Shrieking Harpies - saving the best for last! Not really, everyone was great, but the Harpies are a particular favorite of mine (and many people judging by the full and enthusiastic). They improvise a musical around audience suggestions, and this one was about teens at a sleepaway camp called "First Kiss Camp." You can imagine where that went. But I think they're used to a longer runtime (you can see the at Fringe), because this musical stopped in the middle with no resolution! To be continued...