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Say a man and a woman walk into a well-known tourist town by the sea. They climb a mountain, visit the museum, down a couple of lobsters, maybe even buy a T-shirt or two for some friends back home in Chicago. “What a terrific day,” one says to the other. “Why not finish by checking out that new improv club?”
Except at the time, in this particular town, there was no improv club. That was four years ago. Now, thanks to Jennifer Shepard and Larrance Fingerhut, there is one. ImprovAcadia opens Thursday, June 10 in what used to be the second-floor dining room of a pizza parlor in Bar Harbor. The two creative entrepreneurs, who also happen to be husband and wife and business partners, are ready. Or, make that as ready as you can be when improvisation -which they describe as “truth in comedy” – is the point.
“Improv,” as the inside players call it, isn’t exactly something you rehearse. Instead, every character, context, song, and dance is created, as their ads say, “on the spot, using audience suggestions and our actors’ quick wits.”
In the new club, threading his way between a jumble of snazzy bistro chairs and a carton containing the cash register, Fingerhut distinguishes the art of improv as “fluid, mercurial. It’s a theatrical form. It’s not a stand-up comedy show. Yes, it’s definitely funny – because people and situations are funny. And of course the audience is in on it.”
Or, as Shepard puts it, “So, OK, I’ll become a chicken.” Whether that chicken ends up in a grand ballroom, switching genders, or leading a life of crime is part of the spontaneity and collaboration improv invites. Maybe someone calls out an invented name for a Western the actors turn into Shakespeare or a horror show for a series of two-minute scenes. Another suggestion might morph into a 30-minute musical never to be seen again or spotlight someone from what Fingerhut and Shepard have named “the community well” telling true stories that become part of a dream sequence.
Short or long, the improv form will be funny – but, as Shepard points out, “Poignancy is possible, too. In any good comedy there’s a certain amount of pathos.” Think freeze-tag. Jazz. Fresh.
True, when Fingerhut, 49, sits down at his Yamaha electric piano in the converted space painted stardust-blue, the composer draws on more than 500 musicals and 20 years of professional experience. He was also musical director of The Deckhouse Restaurant and Cabaret Theatre and composer for The Unusual Cabaret on MDI for years.
Shepard, 34, majored in theater at the University of Iowa and has performed nationwide for a decade with the Chicago Comedy Company, ImprovOlympic and The Playground, the only improv co-op in the country owned and run by its players. Shepard and Fingerhut say the other half a dozen actors they’ve hired bring years of experience to the venture, not only in the United States, but also in Singapore, Vienna, Amsterdam, the Caribbean, and Scotland, where Fingerhut was part of “Baby Wants Candy,” a Chicago-based improv troupe that became a major hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for five years running.
Now the stage is set – meaning wide open – for ImprovAcadia.
ImprovAcadia’s summer schedule includes three 70-minute shows a night, seven nights a week – a “kid-friendly” one at 7 p.m., a second show at 9:30 p.m., and “the jam show,” with full-audience participation, at 11:45 p.m. Each show costs $12. Doors opens at 6 p.m. and reservations (available by telephone or online) will be held for up to one half-hour before each show. Minors must be accompanied by an adult. For information, call 288-2503 or visit www.improvacadia.com.
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