I went to an improv show!
A couple days ago my friend invited me to go with him to an improv comedy show, it was great!
The show was called "Improv Night with Colin Mochrie & Friends". I do some improv acting, but I don't know very much about important improvisers or about the industry as a whole. Because of this, I had no idea who Colin Mochrie was; To me, this show was just a bunch of talented comedians being hilarious for a couple of hours.
But now, having done some research for this blog post, I've learned that this guy's REALLY famous!
Colin Mochrie was born in Scotland, his family emigrated to Canada seven years later. He learned about improv comedy while attending Studio 58 at Langara College and then went on to join the Vancouver TheatreSports League where he met Ryan Stiles. Colin then moved to Toronto and joined The Second City comedy troupe.
Later in his improv career, Mochrie joined Whose Line Is It Anyway? on ABC, where he was the most important figure in making improv comedy what it is today in North America; He is (at least in my opinion) the single greatest improv comedy actor on this continent.
My experience at the show
We arrived at the theatre quite early before the show started; To pass the time, I grabbed one of each pamphlet in the lobby and read them all. It was more about staving off boredom than it was about learning things, but I did find out that this theatre is run by the Arts Club Theatre Company, so that's pretty cool.
Once I was finished reading, the show started up. It was the funniest improv acting that I have EVER seen. The improvisers were as fast as professional table-tennis players, and every single line was absolutely hilarious! It's hard to describe the jokes, you just had to be there, but the lighting was pretty impressive too! Whenever a scene ended the lights would just suddenly darken, I don't know how they accomplished this, as the scenes were (obviously) unscripted and didn't have a defined "end" state.
About one hour into the show, there was a 15 minute intermission. Me and my friend Charlie used this intermission to test private aircraft; We used the pamphlets from earlier and folded some paper airplanes, mine was smaller and lighter, but with a slightly wider wingspan. Charlie's plane was fairly heavy, and had narrow wings.
We took the planes outside to test over the sidewalk, I was rather disappointed in my plane's performance, as it flew short of the competition nearly every time (though it was able to spin and turn and that was pretty cool); But, it was still a fun break to a funnier show, so I shouldn't complain.
We got back to our seats, intermission ended, the show resumed, it was incredibly comical.
That's the end of that. Bit of a lengthy one this time, but still fun to write. Thank you.
Goodbye from Sam.