2016 Sarasota Improv Festival gets in the 'Zone'

Impro Theatre, a troupe from Los Angeles, will be the headlining act with its improvised version of the "Twilight Zone" at the 2016 Sarasota Improv Festival at Florida Studio Theatre. PHOTO PROVIDED BY FST

Impro Theatre, a troupe from Los Angeles, will be the headlining act with its improvised version of the "Twilight Zone UnScripted" at the 2016 Sarasota Improv Festival at Florida Studio Theatre. PHOTO PROVIDED BY FST

Rod Serling had nothing to do with the episodes of “The Twilight Zone” that will make a one-time appearance during the 2016 Sarasota Improv Festival, but they wouldn’t exist without him.

Serling created the ground-breaking science fiction television series in which bizarre and sometimes other-worldly things happen to seemingly innocent characters. Audiences have been thrilling to them since the series made its debut in 1959.

Dan O’Connor is one of those fans, but he and some fellow actors and improv artists, add their own touch with “The Twilight Zone UnScripted” through their Los Angeles-based company Impro Theatre. The troupe, which began doing short-form improv in 1988 as Los Angeles Theatresports, is the headliner of the eighth Sarasota Improv Festival at Florida Studio Theatre.

“The Twilight Zone UnScripted” which will be presented Friday and Saturday, is one of several extended productions that Impro Theatre members perform, including full-length improvised plays in the styles of Tennessee Williams, William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov and the musicals of Stephen Sondheim.

“With the ‘Twilight Zone’ we’ve probably watched every episode and read a lot about Rod Serling,” O’Connor said in a telephone interview. “Whoever is directing the pieces has to design improv exercises and skill building drills to get the genre in our bones. We’re not working off a format. It’s about learning the style so deeply that once you get a suggestion, you can do an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ that was never written.”

He said the show is “not a parody. It’s an homage. We’re trying to play it straight,” but because the performances feature family ideas and formats, they become funny.

Rebecca Hopkins, who started the FST Improv troupe and launched the improv festival, and Will Luera, the company’s first director of improvisation, picked “The Twilight Zone UnScripted” theme over other options because “it’s something that the audience probably grew up with,” Luera said. “They will recognize it immediately.”

Impro Theatre is one of three improv troupes making their debut at the festival, joining 15 others returning from past years — including Dad’s Garage, Available Cupholders, Stacked and SAK Comedy Lab — that have built up local followings over the years.

The improv troupe Parallelogramophonograph, better known as PGraph, from Austin, Texas, is among the new acts at the 2016 Sarasota Improv Festival. PHOTO PROVIDED BY FST

Parallelogramophonograph (better known as P-Graph), one of the new groups, performed a weekly show for nearly 10 years in Austin before focusing on touring with the foursome Kaci Beeler, Kareem Badr, Roy Janik and Valerie Ward. They work to create original ways of telling stories in their shows. Speechless, described as a theatrical project, features Colombian improvisers Felipe Ortiz and Daniel Orrantia paired with Canadian DJ Mama Cutsworth. They tell stories silently, focusing on body movements and music.

Once again, Thursday’s opening night will feature six Florida-based troupes divided into two sets followed by a Florida All Star King of the Hill Competition.

Several groups will perform both Friday and Saturday in roughly 45-minute sets, though Impro Theatre will have slightly longer shows. Saturday ends with all the weekend improvisers gathered on stage for an All Play jam session.

During the day on Saturday, there will be 14 workshops (the most ever) led by performers from the different troupes and focusing on everything from storytelling to creating characters and getting physical.

Speechless is a troupe with two improv artists from Colombia (Daniel Orrantia, left, and Felipe Ortiz) and Canadian DJ Mama Cutsworth. COURTESY PHOTO

Many of the improv performers sign up to learn from other groups, but the workshops also attract a wide array of audience members, Luera said.

The popularity of improv has been growing nationwide, and Luera and Hopkins estimate there are more than 1,000 troupes performing in the United States. Most operate part time, but nearly a dozen are running full-time theaters, as is FST, which has weekly improv shows and an expanding series of classes.

“The industry as a whole continues to evolve and grow,” Hopkins said. “There used to be four groups that everybody knows. Now there are dozens.”

One of the workshops, “Genre, narrative and what playwrights can teach you about improvising,” will be led by Impro Theatre, which began as a TheatreSports company in 1988. It was inspired by a format created by Keith Johnstone, who turned to professional wrestling as a way to inspire his acting students.

TheatreSports “was invented as a way of getting actors to improvise. It was a way to get them to be more in their bodies and more present on stage,” O’Connor said.

Johnstone saw professional wrestling in England and thought that “even though everyone knew wrestling was fake, people still cheered and there was great energy. What if we could get that type of energy in the theater? That’s where the idea of a theatrical competition for theater sports came out, to get that audience engaged in what they were watching.”

TheatreSports is a fake competition between two teams of actors, improvising based on suggestions by the audience and judged by three paternal figures, he said.

Dan O'Connor is the co-founder and producing artistic director of Impro Theatre in Los Angeles. COURTESY PHOTO

His company started with the competitions and gradually evolved into other, more extended kinds of improv.

“We’re a theater company. We all did TheatreSports and other forms of improv for years. We all went to drama school of some kind and all of us make a living as actors,” he said. “We wanted to combine the two.”

Seeking new challenges, the company started with a full-length Shakespeare play in a small version of the Globe Playhouse, and gradually tried other kinds of theatrical styles. Impro Theatre has since performed “L.A. Noir” at a 1,200 seat amphitheater with a live jazz band that also was improv-ing and last December the group created an improvised holiday show in the style of Andy Williams, Bob Hope and Perry Como.

“The company has evolved in a terrific way in the last couple of years. We have a school that is thriving and students are now taking stuff we’ve been teaching, doing improvised ‘Game of Thrones’ or improvised ‘Star Trek.’ That’s been a lot of fun to see, that this work is now getting transferred to a new generation.”

2016 SARASOTA IMPROV FESTIVAL
July 14-16, Florida Studio Theatre, 1241 N. Palm Ave., Sarasota
941-366-9000; floridastudiotheatre.org
Tickets are $69 for a three-day pass; $59 for two-day pass; $49 for Friday or Saturday; $20 for Thursday night pass; $10 for single tickets; $25 for Impro Theatre, $6 for “Zap! Bang! Pow!” Workshops are $29 or $75 for three.

Thursday, July 14
7 p.m. (Bowne’s Lab): Just The Funny, Dear Aunt Gertrude, Sick Puppies Comedy

8:30 p.m. (Bowne’s Lab): The Third Thought, Post Dinner Conversation, Villain Improv

10 p.m. (Bowne’s Lab): FAST - Florida All Star King of the Hill Competition.

Friday, July 15

6 p.m. (Keating Theatre): FST Improv

7 p.m. (Keating): Parallelogramophonograph

7 p.m. (Goldstein Cabaret): ImprovBoston

8 p.m. (Keating): Dad’s Garage

8 p.m. (Goldstein): Speechless

8 p.m. (Gompertz Theatre): Impro Theatre

9 p.m. (Keating): Available Cupholders

9 p.m. (Goldstein): STACKED