Crowdwork makes the show work for comedy improv duo

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No rehearsal, no Notes app and no prepared remarks: Alex Forman and Nash Park follow the crowd’s lead when taking the stage as a comedy duo.

For the last three years, the British Columbia comics have used audience members — their relationships, their careers, their morbid, strange realities — as an evergreen reservoir of one-night-only material, building improvised sets completely off a crowdwork foundation.

Typically, that type of audience interaction is meant to support road-tested material, but for Park, originally from Terrace, B.C., and Forman, who was born and raised in Virden, the improvised jostling is at the root of everything.

“Standups use their own stories to tell a joke. We use other people’s stories to tell a joke together,” says Forman, who with Park, Jon Dore and a lineup of other comedians, will bring the Crowd Work Show to the Gas Station Arts Centre on Thursday as part of the Winnipeg Comedy Festival.

One of the most difficult parts of being a working comedy producer and performer is to consistently develop fresh sets while also promoting your work online, says Park, who’s done comedy for seven years.

Comedians are weary of repeating themselves, especially in small comedy circuits, he adds.

Crowdwork presents an opportunity for comedians to develop rapport, keep audiences engaged and push beyond the expected boundaries of the form.

Crowdwork can also go viral without comedians having to blow any punchlines.

“It’s like scraps of fun for the internet,” comedian Jordan Jensen, who headlined at Rumor’s Comedy Club last weekend, said on a recent episode of Bein’ Ian with Jordan, the podcast she co-hosts with Ian Fidance.

Some industry veterans — including that episode’s guest, Todd Barry — worry that the increased emphasis on crowdwork as a driver for online engagement has reduced the perceived value of well-honed material. But the response by audiences, both in person and on social media, has led crowdwork to become more than throwaway fodder or a dead-air filler.

“A lot of traditional comedians really don’t like crowdwork because to them it goes against the artform because it’s the only thing that really goes viral,” says Park, who thinks there’s room for both preparation and randomness.

“But I feel the way we’re doing it is kind of different. We kick up dust and once there’s enough in the air we start playing around. We start out really broad, as opposed to pointing at a table and saying, ‘You.’”

Inviting the audience into a setting that feels like the midway point between an improv show and a light roast of non-celebrities, Forman and Park give the crowd a certain sense of control over the outcome.

Before the show, one audience member is given a confetti cannon, which they’re responsible for setting off as soon as they think the performance should end. And as soon as the comics take the stage, they begin to gently interrogate and tease out humour from attendees, building bits from those scraps.

“Coming from Virden, teasing is my love language,” says Forman, who says the southwestern Manitoba town “trained me to be a comedian.”

“Virden really equipped me to be who I am. I was the shyest kid in the world and that town beat that out of me.”

The formula has been working well for three years for Forman and Park, who co-own a comedy events company and podcast called OK Dope. They run monthly shows in Victoria, with recent showcases on Vancouver Island, Regina and Saskatoon.

After their stop in Winnipeg, the duo will head to Calgary and Edmonton. Last month, Forman and Park recorded a special at Victoria’s Hecklers comedy club, set to be released on their YouTube channel in the coming months.

“The audience teases us and we tease them,” says Forman, who describes the vibe as a low-intensity roast conducted by two soft comics who know what it feels like to be bullied.

“We’re both incredibly broken people,” Park says with a laugh.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com