The Opinion Page

Editors: Jeff Catanese & William T McEvoy

Why you should attend your closest improv festival:

There always seems to be a few naysayers in any artistic discipline who are willing to stay closed off from the possibility of an artistic community.  These are often the same people who think that festivals, or any opportunity for the community to get together and share ideas, are masturbatory block parties where everyone pats each other on the back while brandishing a stiletto in the other hand.  Although those people exist, they are certainly not who a festival is for, nor are those the people who will find ways to incorporate a community’s ideas for years to come.

This being our Chicago Improv Festival issue, and CIF being the biggest improv festival in the country, Improv Review would like to take this opportunity to express our wish for all improvisors to seek out their local, national and worldwide communities.  We are asking this for the sake of improv as an art form.  Even if a performer were to choose to improvise alone in their basement, they would probably fare much better if they were aware of what innovations were taking place among like-minded individuals in basements elsewhere.

Improv Olympic’s Charna Halpern told a story to the attendees at CIF, many of them young, green and hungry improvisors from all over the world.  Her story concerned her friendship with the Annoyance Theater’s Mick Napier, and how, when Improv Olympic was redoing their theater, Ms. Halpern offered all of their old seats to Mr. Napier and the Annoyance.  The people who overheard this exchange, Ms. Halpern said, were confused.  "Aren’t you in competition with them?" they asked.  Ms. Halpern replied, "They’re another improv company who can use the chairs.  Besides, Mick’s a friend."

A story such as this might not raise an eyebrow to some, but to others, many that I know, it would be a shocking tale of how to send your theater company into ruin.  To those people I say, lighten up.  When your improv show is packing the house at twenty-five dollars a head, and the group across town begins stealing patrons away with the same offer, you are in competition.  Until then, consider yourself a struggling artist who would really like to get his or her shit out there, and could really use the help of other artist in the same boat.  And remember, you’re not going to find minds to be simpatico with until you get out there into your community, and see what minds there are.

- Jeff Catanese

__________________________________________________________

 Letters to the editor:

Kudos Review.

Dear Editors:

Thanks to Improv Review for being the improv 

website that recognizes the connection and potential 

between the "in the moment" of improv and the "in 

the moment" of theatre.  It is the mission of Freestyle 

Repertory Theatre to investigate those links and 

develop pieces of theatre. 

I look forward to more conversation about the 

relationship between improvisation and the live theatre.

Michael Durkin

Executive Director

Freestyle Repertory Theater

Your opinions are important too. editor@improvreview.com

Improv Review reserves the right to edit all letters for space and content. In order to get your letter published, please include your full name, the way you would like your name to appear, your city, your improv affiliation (if any), your e-mail address and a daytime telephone number.  (so we may confirm your identity)