Practising spontaneity

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This article was published 17/10/2024 (637 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

This summer Colin Mochrie came to town, the most famous man in Canadian improv popping in for an unforgettable stint during the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival.

Mochrie was everywhere, and on one evening in July, Caity Curtis was onstage with him.

Known for his quick wit, self-effacing charm and shameless punmanship, Mochrie — a veteran of the TV improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway? — joined the players in an evening performance of the Big Big Improv Show at the University of Winnipeg’s Asper Centre.

“He’s very happy to show up and jump into whatever he does,” recalls Curtis, who’s been performing improv theatre since she found out it existed.

“He was very trusting and humble, which all good improvisers are. What makes him an incredible performer is that he brings confidence to the stage. He’s so rehearsed in getting to the point of comedy quickly, and he’s great with one-liners. He’s incredibly well-refined.”

If that’s part of what makes a strong improviser, then imagine what makes someone a sought-after improv coach.

Picture Curtis, a Winnipegger who was hired this year by Club Soda, one of the city’s most experienced troupes, to help them level up their game eight years after their first performance.

In advance of Friday’s Winnipeg Improv Festival appearance by Club Soda — a tribute and parody of Are You Afraid of the Dark, a beloved/reviled children’s horror anthology program that aired on YTV throughout the 1990s and early 2000s — Curtis has led the team through weekly rehearsals in the basement of the Four Crowns Inn, a business co-owned by the family of improviser and restaurateur Kevin Ramberran.

Her first orders of business were to listen to the team’s individual and collective goals.

“Some were newer improvisers finding their stage legs, learning how to make good choices and carry a scene, how to embody a character. The experienced improvisers often were looking to break bad habits. Funny people certainly get into the habit of relying on (laughs), but I’d say they wanted to develop a little bit more pathos, sincerity and vulnerability instead of relying only on their comedy skills,” Curtis says.

Typically, rehearsals last about two to three hours on Monday nights.

“In this case, we’re doing a genre show, so what we’ve done is we’ve all watched episodes and broken down the conventions of storytelling and plot, seeing what kinds of patterns exist, which kind of problems emerge and how the characters solve them,” says Curtis, who’s performed everywhere from Red Deer, Alta., to Ljubliana, Slovenia.

Curtis thanks her Grade 5 teacher for setting the stage for a 20-year career in improv, script editing and storytelling.

“I was encouraged to take an improv class at Mini U because I was telling stories at school,” she says of the University of Manitoba summer recreation program. “’You’re so creative,’ the teacher said, ‘but you’re scaring other kids, so maybe let’s put you somewhere else.’”

In that somewhere else is where Curtis saw the appeal of communal storytelling, which led her to become, by 14 years old, an improv devotee. Some teenagers dream of their first kiss; while studying at Kelvin High School, Curtis dreamed of the Seattle Festival of Improv Theatre.

At Kelvin, she performed improv with Jesse Bergen and Luke Cecelon, two Club Soda members she now coaches nearly 20 years later.

After graduating, Curtis continued her character development, becoming known as a reliable long-form improv player while touring festivals in cities such as Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, and, yes, Seattle. She started studying toward an architecture degree at the University of Manitoba, with an eye on a career in environmental design.

She was intrigued by the ways physical space can elicit emotion or be used to instruct certain ways of living. A lecture on mixed-use properties in Quebec City inspired her by forcing her to imagine the co-operation required by both the baker on the ground floor and the tenant sleeping in the apartment upstairs.

Curtis never considered the correlation between that type of vertical storytelling and the type she deploys on and offstage in the world of improvised theatre, but she recognizes the parallels between street parking and pratfalling.

“‘You’re so creative,’ the teacher said, ‘but you’re scaring other kids, so maybe let’s put you somewhere else.’”–Caity Curtis

“There’s something there about looking at the needs and the way to meet them with a narrative influence. Every street should be built differently and every show should be built based on what the people want and need,” she says.

And what people want and need in the best spooky stories is to laugh at their fear instead of fearing it, with performers and listeners confronting discomfort in pursuit of surprise, reward and communion, Curtis says.

That’s what Josh Fidelak got out of Curtis’s performance during that big, big show at the fringe.

“I think probably the greatest compliment I could (give) about this show is that they had Colin Mochrie as a guest star, and the highlight was still a local performer,” Fidelak wrote in his response for The Jenny Revue, an audience-generated fringe fest publication.

According to Fidelak, even though Mochrie was the one who came to town, it was Curtis who stole the show.

But Curtis, who spent three years working with virtual theatre tech company Flipside XR and teaches at the Improv Company, is the first to offer a reminder that improvising is a team sport, heightened by constant listening and punctuated by well-timed, well-oiled responsivity. Improv is about constellations, not stars.

“Engaged, active listeners make excellent improvisers,” she says.

“It’s about being in the moment, and if your brain is busy trying to think of the next funny thing, you’ll get lost.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com

 

Now and then

Ahead of Club Soda’s take on Are You Afraid of the Dark, the Free Press asked the team to tell us what scared them most as kids and as adults.

Jane Hilder

Kid Jane: Bloody Mary

Adult Jane: Bloody Mary

Future Jane: Bloody Mary. OH FU-…

Jesse Bergen

Kid Jesse: Monster in the closet

Adult Jesse: People who text while driving

 

Kevin Ramberran

Kid Kevin: Spiders

Adult Kevin: Empty audiences

 

Luke Cecelon

Kid Luke: a T-800 Terminator hiding in my basement.

Adult Luke: a T-800 Terminator hiding in my basement.

 

Kerri Woloszyn

Kid Kerri: the dark, and asteroids hitting the earth

Adult Kerri: the dark (and many other more serious things)

 

Monique Gauthier

Kid Monique: Aliens

Adult Monique: Aliens

 

Kristen Einarson

Kid Kristen: Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Adult Kristen: Driving

 

Cuinn Joseph

(As this section was left blank, we can assume Joseph has never experienced fear)

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