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BY NOEL DINNEEN
Minneapolis, the city with a twin. The city where Prince parties like it was still last year. Home to the Mall of America and where, as they say on the Prairie Home Companion, the ketchup is delicious. A recent informal survey on the corner of Clark and Belmont asking, "What do you know about Minneapolis?" resulted in zero percent new information. Just what are the subjects of Jesse 'The Mind’ Ventura hiding? A lot it seems. Minneapolis has one of the most highly educated populations in America. It is a cultural goldmine and also home to a rapidly growing improv community, second in the country only to Chicago.Minneapolis has three main improv institutes: ComedySportz (CSZ), Stevie Ray’s (SR), and Brave New Workshop (BNW). All three perform shows, hire themselves out for corporate gigs, and teach classes. Like Chicago many improvisers bounce from one institution to another, picking up new skills from each.
ComedySportz follows the formula for success spelled out by Keith Johnstone and used in CSZ theatres across the globe. CSZ Twin Cities originally got off to a rather spotty start that nobody was willing to discuss. Needless to say, it had to do with debauchery, deceit, and drag-queens (seriously). While this may be a recipe for great theatre, it doesn’t work for great theatre management. In the mid 90s, Mary Strutzel and Doug Ocar gained ownership of the franchise and turned things around. The theatre now plays to packed houses, hosted the "Don’t Hate Us Because We’re Funny" benefit last year, and will be hosting a local "Funny Women’s Fest" in the spring.
"The contrast between the CSZ Chicago and the CSZ Twin Cities is a microcosm of the differences between the cities," says Jill Bernard, a performer with CSZ Twin Cities and the Impossibles. "CSZ Twin Cities is known for being theatrical and musical. We veer toward the charming. I played with CSZ Chicago once. It was like being in the center of a hurricane, fast and furious and in-your-face."
Even though they teach the same thing as CSZ’s everywhere, a local flavor is instilled in the players and the shows. Classes start every 10 weeks and auditions for CSZ players are held every six months.
Stevie Ray’s has focused on short-form improvisation since the company’s inception in 1989, but in a way that is less structured and more personalized. Students of all levels are encouraged to stress different aspects of improv, depending on their individual goals (professionals stress confidence and cooperation, performers stress stagework).
According to owner and artistic director Stevie Ray, "We have always felt that improv skills and techniques are valuable for life skills, so we teach on the assumption that improvisation will affect all areas of life."
Ray also writes a column for a local business paper called "Improvising Business," and the theatre company uses improv in corporate training to improve communication, conflict resolution, and management. Workshops are offered in sketch writing, music and dialects. SR’s has twice hosted the Minneapolis Improv Festival and has participated in Chicago festivals, but feels that Chicago does not influence them any more than any other city.
"It is difficult to fully enjoy the Chicago scene because attitudes people are developing over style and the resulting division," says Ray. "We will continue to participate, but will steer clear of the posturing and debates."
SR’s holds an annual holiday show and produces a summer "Improv in the Park" series. Classes are held six days a week and all shows and corporate gigs are cast from within.
The best known and longest running improv institution in Minneapolis is Brave New Workshop (see 11 Questions in this issue). They have been around since 1958, produced more than 300 original shows (sketch and improv), operate two theatres with a third on the way, and have an impressive list of celebrities who have launched their careers from inside their walls. Owners Jenni Lilledahl (who has taught at all three Chicago Improv Fests, Chicago’s recent Funny Women’s Fest, and Austin’s Big Stinkin’ Improv Fest) and John Sweeney met in a Stevie Ray’s class where they shared the institutes headier thoughts on improv. They fell in love, married, moved to Chicago (where they worked for Second City Communication) and learned the Harold at ImprovOlympic. Later, they returned to Minneapolis, and bought the BNW from local celebrity Dudley Riggs. Their philosophy on improv surpasses SR’s in loftiness, paralleling the Tibetan "Book of The Dead" with talk of clearing the mind completely to allow for the presence of the pure white light to allow for the apparitions that come from within. The BNW has a Second City; like review show, Harold shows (an import from Chicago), and a local production of Noble Fool’s Flanigan’s Wake.
Joel Gray, ex-Minneapolis improviser now residing in Chicago, was practicing short-form improv at the BNW when the Harold was introduced and says, "One guy would try to explain it to us and we would wrestle with these ideas. What we ended up with was really a new form altogether."
The Twin Cities also plays host to several grass-roots troupes who must fight for stage time as well as audiences. But if my small sampling is at all representative, this performance tier seems to be moony-eyed in love with their craft and completely absent of any bitterness. Bernard, who hails from Downers Grove, moonlights with the Impossibles. She describes their mixed long-form and short-form shows as, "downright rambunctious, physical and wacky–fortunately, that’s the way we like it."
The Drunk Baby Collective, who perform long-form and sketch comedy, travel around to festivals and guest shows so much that member Scott Zilka jokes, "Our running gag is that more people know about us nationally than in our home town."
Alison Werthmann, performer and producer of the all women short-form and sketch troupe 3 Months To Live Comedy Company, sets the groups goals no lower than, "give people a reason to come out and see improv comedy instead of going to see a movie. There are still a lot of people who don’t know what improv is. We’re trying to change that."
All of these groups contain the essence of what improv is, without the heavy dose of ego that tends to accompany it. So if you are burnt out on improv and want to get as far away from it as humanly possible, I have only one word of advice: Don’t go to Minneapolis. You will probably see as much improv there as you would here. They just don’t tend to brag about it as much as we do.