Improv actors evoke laughs on the spot

In the shadows backstage, eight actors fidget.

They tilt their chins side to side, stretch their arms in the air, pull at their fingers and knuckles.

“Unique New York Unique New York,” says Hunter Willis, his lips contorting to magnify each syllable.

A digital clock blinks 7:04. The Little Theatre at The Broadmoor is packed with chattering guests and excited kids. White lights blanket the empty stage.

Three minutes to showtime.

Willis jumps in place. “This is when I get nervous,” he says.

A handful of actors started this local improv troupe, Stick Horses in Pants, nearly four years ago, first performing for friends in living rooms. Since then, the troupe has grown to about a dozen members and become a legit entertainment act — filling local theaters that seat hundreds.

In the improv scene, Stick Horses in Pants is a well-known name. (The troupe members vetoed their initial name — “Stick Horses in Trousers” — after realizing what their acronym would be.)

With several sold-out shows under its, uh, pants, the group’s popularity has warranted regular gigs at The Broadmoor and a recent five-month contract with The Colorado Springs School to perform monthly.

That doesn’t mean the actors are ready for tonight — at least not entirely. So much of their success or failure depends on what the audience cooks up.

“On some levels, you’re just amazed that funny things actually happen when you don’t script them,” says 28-year-old Sarah Smith, actor and co-founder of SHiP. “I think the audience can taste the edginess of when the performers don’t know what they’re doing.”

With inspiration from the popular TV show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Colorado Springs improvisational troupes have carved out a scene for their craft in local theaters and bars. Though few venues and bars host improv on a regular basis, several troupes are pushing to make improv a more popular and prevalent entertainment option. One troupe, The RiP, even partnered with a conventional community theater troupe, the Star Bar Players, to add improvisation to its current comedy, “Scapin.”

“Improv transcends genres and style,” says Kevin Rorke, co-founder of The Felonious Monks. “You can use any style at any time. Improv tends to be topical — you can use current events in it.”

But the real appeal?

“Audiences really like to see a player struggle onstage and then come up with something stupid or brilliant,” says 26-yearold Margarita Archilla of The RiP. “If the audience buys into it, who says an alligator can’t be a push broom?”

Toby Lorenc, SHiP’s host for the evening, steps onstage and welcomes The Broadmoor crowd. He introduces himself and asks the audience members to shout out their names — receiving an incomprehensible jumble of noise. He asks what everyone had at Thanksgiving dinner, getting the same scrambled response.

“I heard ‘soup,’” Lorenc says. The crowd laughs.

Debra Faricy watches anxiously in the audience. Like most viewers, she’s torn. Knowing Lorenc personally (they’re co-workers), she wants him to succeed. But truth be told — some of the best material comes from things going awry.

The actors embrace this.

“There’s something about sitting in the audience thinking, ‘I think they can do this, but I kind of want them to mess up . . . but I’m sort of rooting for them,’” Lorenc says. “I’ve had audience members tell me, ‘My stomach was in knots the whole time because I was afraid you were going to mess up and I was worried for you.’”

Don’t matter if they do — it’s funny either way, which allows many troupes to successfully mix experienced actors with actor-hopefuls — such as The Felonious Monks.

Rorke, 30, started the Monks in January of 2007, naming the troupe as a spoof on jazz great Thelonious Monk. (As a musician, he’d always wanted to bestow that name on a band, but a quick Google search showed several people had also had that idea. Thus, it became the name of his improv troupe instead.)

The Monks tend to travel the bar circuit, performing in such venues as Oscar’s and George’s Union Station, and recently ended a series of weekly shows at Mc-Cabe’s Tavern — where the troupe picked up 29-year-old Lamont Wood.

“I was like, ‘Hey, man, give me five minutes,’” says Wood, who was convinced he might be good at improv because he “can be kind of funny sometimes.” (A fair claim — he had performed in comedy shows in California in years prior.) “I kept hounding him on it, and he was like, ‘Come out and rehearse.’”

Yes, rehearse. You didn’t think it was all spontaneous comedic magic, did you?

Though improv hinges on spur-of-the-moment suggestions, there is a little behindthe-scenes prep. The skits you see — they’ve performed them dozens of times before.

Short-form improvisation, which consists of one- to fiveminute skits derived from audience suggestions, is made of standardized gimmicks that allow actors to practice the concept of the game with different suggestions.

Skits such as “Everyday Olympics,” a popular SHiP routine in which chores are presented as Olympic games, are formulaic. Two actors host the game, two actors compete, roles that are practiced beforehand. Onstage, the cast plugs in an audience suggestion.

“It creates an illusion that we just get up there and do it on a whim,” says 28-year-old Elisa Pott, who is in SHiP. “The audience is just surprised.”

Not that improv is easy. Especially not long form, which intertwines a few audience suggestions through a series of comprehensive scenes. Actors attempt to form a cohesive theme that carries through a plotline.

“I think there’s more risk involved with long-form improv,” Archilla says. “There’s a specific rule to short-form improv games, whereas in long form, you’re just out there doing whatever and hoping it’s entertaining.”

Though both forms are a crash-course in teamwork, long-form improv actors are trained to look for signs that someone is sinking onstage. When Mark Rantall, 22, starts pacing onstage, his troupe members know he’s thinking of what to do next.

“After a few minutes, one of us will jump out and create a situation where somebody would be pacing,” Archilla says. “We kind of know when the other person is floundering and we need to take over.”

That’s the real secret to making it work: Actors must work together or the show tanks.

Jeremy Badry, 27, stands onstage, stumped. He’s trying to guess what character SHiP teammate Lacey Maynard, 29, is trying to act out. The skit is a game — the audience suggests celebrities and characters for three actors to assume as dating contestants. A fourth actor (the bachelor) tries to figure out who they are by asking questions.

Badry nailed the first two — Tom Cruise and Napoleon Dynamite (a boy’s suggestion to a prompt for a historical character). He’s stuck on Maynard, who’s moving stiffly across the stage and emitting monstrous growls from a stern face.

The audience waits.

Willis, who was not cast in this skit, bursts onstage, miming Frankenstein, and hugs Maynard.

“Bride of Frankenstein,” Badry says.

“There’s a star of a play,” Willis says. “There’s no star of improv.”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0152 or melissa.cassutt@gazette.com

details

Stick Horses in Pants

When: The group performs the fourth Saturday of every month through May. The next show starts at 7 p.m. Feb. 23.

Where: The Louisa Performing Arts Center at The Colorado Springs School, 21 Broadmoor Ave. Tickets: $6 children/$8 adults/$30 families; Colorado Springs School students: $5 students/ $7 parents/$25 families. Purchase with cash at the door or by credit card online at thestickhorses.com.

Interested in improv classes?

E-mail classes@the stickhorses.com. More info: myspace.com/thestickhorses

The RiP

When: As part of the cast of “Scapin,” the group will perform at 8 p.m. today and Saturday.

Where: Taylor Theatre at Colorado College, 14 E. Cache La Poudre St.

Tickets: $16; $10 with Colorado College ID.

Call: 573-7411.

More info: theriponline.com

The Felonious Monks

The group doesn’t have any bookings as of press time but is scheduled to resume monthly shows at McCabe’s Tavern in coming weeks. More info: myspace.com/feloniousmonks comedy