ELLSWORTH – There is something hilarious going on inside the Beth C. Wright Cancer Resource Center.

Strange sounds emanate from a small kitchen inside the building. Someone is barking. Someone else is mooing. And just about everyone is giggling.

The people being funny are cancer patients, their friends, family members and their doctors, but cancer is not the thing they are laughing about. They are impersonating animals and concocting silly stories about pancakes and worms that climb mountains. They are learning about the art of improvisational comedy, or the spontaneous creation of comical skits and songs.

But above all else, they are learning how to let themselves go, be open-minded and just laugh.

“Part of improv is giving up control of the whole and just playing your part,” said Jennifer Shepard, who, along with her husband, Larrance Fingerhut, are leading a weekly series of improvisational workshops at the cancer resource center in Ellsworth.

“So often in life, people are like, ‘No – what? We can’t do that,'” she said. “But an important part of improv is saying yes to whatever you are getting from your partner.”

Some say laughter is the best medicine. But even if it’s not, it certainly can’t hurt to crack up every now and then. Laughing releases endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers, and increases levels of serotonin, a brain chemical that can affect the way a person feels or thinks.

Studies have shown it can lower blood pressure, boost the immune system and promote relaxation.

The improv workshops are designed to promote those therapeutic benefits.

“The intent is to relieve stress and let people realize that they can still laugh,” Fingerhut said.

“You do feel better when you laugh,” Shepard said. “A good laugh is like a good cry. It gets you outside of yourself.”

The couple owns and performs at ImprovAcadia, a comedy club in Bar Harbor. Both are from Chicago. An actress for the past 20 years, Shepard has studied and performed with ImprovOlympic and The Playground Theater. Fingerhut was music director for ImprovOlympic and the Second City Touring Company.

Now they live in Ellsworth. Besides running the comedy club, they teach improvisational workshops in the community.

Alice Claire of Bar Harbor attended a recent session with her friend and co-worker, Mary Parker, who is in the throes of breast cancer treatment. The women found themselves participating in a short-form improv game in which they finished each other’s sentences to create a story about what it is like to live as a set of Venetian blinds.

Claire said she and Parker were simply looking to have some fun and try something new.

“We just wanted to laugh,” she said. “We wanted to have a good time. You know, you really do have the power to choose. You can choose to feel good or you can choose to feel bad.”

Kali Bird Isis, an expressive arts therapist from Brooklin, was diagnosed last year with melanoma. The disease caused her to rethink many aspects of her life, including her job and her place in the community.

“It is really easy to feel isolated and alone,” she said. She joined the improv group as a first step toward finding her way back to her old life, professionally as well as socially.

“I just wanted to be connected with other people, have a good laugh and to get that sense of being part of a community,” she said.

She and the other 10 or so participants learned that improvisation is challenging. It requires quick thinking, teamwork and a willingness to accept the unexpected.

Those skills are relevant when dealing with a cancer diagnosis, according to Michael Reisman, the Beth Wright center’s executive director.

“Part of improv is that you have to accept whatever is thrown your way,” he said. “When someone is diagnosed with cancer, they have to accept that reality, but then they can go in whatever direction they want to with it. There’s more than one way to deal with cancer.”

The essence of improv is something Fingerhut and Shepard call the “yes and” mentality. That means participants are trained to say yes, or accept, what their partners are offering before they add their own twist to whatever it is they are performing.

Bob Gottlieb, who volunteers at the cancer center and is a regular at ImprovAcadia, said he also sees how that type of thinking can be helpful in real life, whether you are dealing with a cancer diagnosis or any other difficulty.

“When you are dealing with challenging situations in your life, you can shut down and freeze up,” Gottlieb said. “Or you can say, ‘OK, this is something I wasn’t expecting. Now what am I going to do with it?'”

Wendy Fontaine can be reached at 664-0524 and bdnnews2@downeast.net.