The first of May is rapidly approaching and that means our semi-annual Survivor show is near. The exact date of it will be Saturday May 18th. Survivor 7 will crown a new survivor champion as no previous winner of Survivor is performing in the show. The contestants this year are: Takebb, Scott, Nick, Jack, Chris, Gina, Jeff and Anthony. Place your bets now folks, and while you're at it, make your reservations now too cuz if our past Survivor Shows taught us anything, its that this show will most likely sell out.
Also in case you weren't yet aware, we now have a stage! Yep, no more performing on the floor for us. We're moving on up. Get it? Moving on up? We're up on a stage? ..... Okay then.
Also we'd like to give a shout out to ImprovCity High who recently had six of its students performing in our professional show with us. Both shows were so well attended we had to move to a bigger room. Thanks individually to those students: Mckenna, Katy, Jake, Bryce, Rayna and Sarah.
In closing this month ImprovCity will have its 300th show on Friday May 24th. 300 shows in four years! Not too shabby. We'd like to thank all of our fans, both new and old, who've supported us through all these performances. We look forward to the next 300 shows.
Blog time again? I mean it's only been three months. Our bad. But exciting news to share. On the weekend of April 19 and 20, ImprovCity will be doing Cubed Comedy Matches which features three teams of three improvisers competing against one another for laughs. But what makes this even more special is that on each team of three will be a member of ImprovCity High performing with the professionals. So not only are you seeing the best improvisers of today but also the future improv stars of tomorrow. And being it's such a special show, we're going to be giving out a lot of prizes, including signed artwork from local Orange County artist Ryan Eduad (check out his website at www.ryaneduad.com), gift certificates to Boudin Bakery and even free tickets to our shows! Both of these shows are expected to sell out so we do recommend reservations.
And then to finish the month off, as you may (or may not) know, the last Saturday of every month we do a FREE ImprovCity NightLife show after our normal 8pm show. This month on April 27 our NightLife show will be "Standup Comedy by Improv Comedians". See members of ImprovCity, trained in the arts of improv comedy try their hands at standup comedy.
Hello everyone! Happy New Year. Okay...maybe we are 31 days late in saying this...but it's STILL a new year, right? And what a year we have in store for you. Let's discuss what's already happened in these past 31 days.First off, we released our first web series - "The Sam & Sadie Show". It's set in the late 1940's and has an old-time vaudeville feel to it, but done in a fresh modern way. Check it out here: www.thesamandsadieshow.com.This year we've also added onto our educational improv program. As you may or may not know, we currently offer ImprovCity High to all local high schools in the area where we come to your school and teach improv workshops and games and even have the students put on shows! And now we've expanded that idea to ImprovCity AfterSchool which is the same concept but with elementary and middle schools.So if you know a school that may be interested in this wonderful program, please have them contact us for more information.This new year also brings two new performers into our ImprovCity ranks. We'd like to welcome Nick Breslin and Brice Keltner. Both of them will be making their ImprovCity debut in February so be sure to come check them out. We also plan to start working on a new sketch show and we've got some exciting ImprovCity NightLife shows planned. So until next time...keep laughing!
Okay, I know. We've been back from the festival for over 2 weeks now. Sorry, been busy with our shows, ImprovCity High, and teaching improv at elementary schools in Orange County.
But....here's a recap of our trip. And again, a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who donated to our trip and made it possible for ImprovCity to represent Southern California in the festival.
Day one, Wednesday: We arrive at John Wayne airport at 5:30am. Representing ImprovCity on this trip are Devin, Gina, Alex and David. Plane ride was pleasant, but due to a delay, when we arrived in Minneapolis, MN where we had to catch another plane to Green Bay, we only had five minutes to get from Gate C terminal all the way to Gate F. We ran like crazy and were the last ones to board. But we made it. As we arrived in Green Bay, the temperature was 40 degrees and raining. That night we met up with the host troupe, ComedyCity who invited us in to their Wednesday evening practice.
Day two, Thursday: Still raining and 40 degrees. Alex and David performed at a private event with some members of ComedyCity during the afternoon. The evening shows featured a standup comedy show which Alex, David and Devin all participated in. After that was a show which featured Comedy Roulette, where improvisers would talk about current events and then do scenes to recreate them. Alex and Devin took part in this show.
Day three, Friday: Raining even harder now and still 40 degrees. Did some sightseeing during the day and did two great improv shows at night in the format of ImprovCity vs. ComedyCity. The evening was split with a win going to each team.
Day four, Saturday: Take a guess what the weather and temperature was. If you said rain and 40 degrees, you were right. Spent the morning at the Green Bay Wild Life Sanctuary and visiting Lambeau Field. During the evening did two improv shows of ImprovCity and ComedyCity together and after that did a long form improvised show.
Day five, Sunday: We wake up in the morning and get ready to go straight to the airport. Today's temperature....sunny and 60 degrees. Thanks a lot. But we arrive back safely with a ton of great memories, some new friends, and an invite to perform in the festival again next year.
October...but first, let's go over a few HUGE things going on here at ImprovCity.
First up, in case you hadn't hear yet, ImprovCity is going back to school. This past month saw the beginning of ImprovCity High, which is a high school program designed by us here at ImprovCity that teaches high school students improv skills and games. Eventually we'll even be having the students performing in their own shows. For more information on that just visit the website www.improvcityhigh.com.
Next we'd like to give a HUGE thank you to our guest celebrity, Comedy Central star Eddie Pence who performed in our improv show with us last Saturday night and also headlined a standup comedy show with featured many of our ImprovCity cast. Eddie rocked the stage as he always does. We hope to have him back performing with us again soon.
And lastly of our old news, but certainly not the least, we'd like to thank all the folks who voted for us in the LA Times Reader's Poll. We won! That's right, ImprovCity was voted the "Best Comedy/Improv Club in Southern California". Wow....let that sink in for a moment.
And now onto October. Being its almost Halloween time again, you know what that means. It's the return of our ImprovCity presents...ZOMBIES show. This year we have more zombies and more prizes to give away. It's going to be a huge show and expected to sell out so I'd recommend getting reservations.
Ok, enough for now. Bye. And happy trick-or-treating.
Welcome to the 1st day of summer. Spring was quite a busy time for us. Just a quick recap of a few of the highlights:
1. Alex Bower won our Survivor 5 show. Haley Vinzant was the runner up. Great job on both their parts, especially considering it was each of their first Survivor show.
2. We had star of the PBS children's television show "Electric Company", Ashley Austin Morris, perform an amazing improv show with us, which was later capped off with her headlining a very funny standup comedy show with us.
3. We held open auditions and increased our talent pool bysix new people. Expect to see them hitting our stage before the end of summer.
And now, we look forward to the second half of the year! We've already done more it seems this year than in our past three years combined. We've got some big stuff again on the horizon. In July we'll be hosting our 3rd annual LumberJack show as well as having our 200th show! 200 shows...wow. Let that sink in.
And we're expecting to have some more great guest stars come and perform with us. We've already got one lined up for September 29th. I won't ruin the surprise and say yet who he is, but he's a professional standup comedian and performs often on various Comedy Central television specials. He's also appeared in two comedy specials with Lewis Black.
That's about it for now. Until next time...
Sorry it's been awhile since our last blog. What can we say? We've been busy. But busy is good. And it's only getting busier for us. Last month was record setting in our audience attendance of shows and we hope it flows through to the rest of the year. And we think it will...here's why.
In May we've got some HUGE events upcoming. First off, its the return of our biggest show of the year...SURVIVOR! This would be Survivor 5. It's going to be on Saturday May 19th. This show is so big we aren't even going to have a show on the Friday night before. Seriously.
Then on May 26th we've got the honor of having Ashley Austin Morris perform with us in our show! It's going to be an All-Star show format that features Ashley. She's the star of the PBS children's television show "The Electric Company" and has also had major roles on "The Big Bang Theory", "Ugly Betty", "Desperate Housewives" and "The Good Wife". Plus she's been in a TON of off-broadway productions, national commercials and is a national touring standup comedian. Thus that is why after our show with her, we've decided to also put on a FREE standup comedy show immediately afterward. It'll feature some ImprovCity performers trying their hand at standup and then Ashley headlining the show.
Plus sometime in July will be our annual LumberJack match. Probably right around the time we celebrate our 200th show! But more on that later....
This Friday is ImprovCity's last show for 2011. It's been an amazing year for us. We added a whole lot of new people to our improv family, did more shows this year than our past two years combined, and along with that started doing weekly shows. Here's a few other things that we did this year we are proud of:
- We put on our first ever one act plays
- We started doing a monthly late night show
- We got some television and media coverage
- We were voted the best place to laugh in Orange County by the OC Hotlist
- We helped a lot of non-profit organizations raise money for some great causes
- We had our first ImprovCity stand up comedy show
With all these things that happened (and trust me, there are a lot more, I just can't type them all here), I can only imagine what 2012 will have in store for us. And of course, NONE of this would have been possible if not for YOU, our fans. We at ImprovCity would like to say thanks a thousand times over for supporting us and coming to our shows. We look forward to seeing all of you again next year. Happy holidays and a happy new year.
ImprovCity will be putting on its first two ever One Act Plays on Friday December 16 at 8:00pm at The Gallery of Performing Arts in Tustin and Saturday December 17 at Back Bay Conference Center (above Irvine Lanes) at 9:45pm (following the 8pm ImprovCity show).
Both plays were written by ImprovCity's Artistic Director Devin Dugan. The first one is called "Duffy's Inn" and the second is entitled "Straight Men". See synopsis of both below.
DUFFY'S INN: This play revolves around the relationship of a laid back tavern/inn owner and his most loyal customer, who is a ne'er do well always looking for ways to clear up his increasing bar tab. Directed by Gina Dugan and starring Anthony Nitz and Devin Dugan.
STRAIGHT MEN: Two legendary comedians, Bud Abbott (of Abbott & Costello fame) and George Burns (of Burns & Allen fame) meet and compare highlights of their life and talk about being the straight men in their respective comedy acts. Then, they decide to see what it would be like to be the funny half of the act instead. Directed by Devin Dugan and starring Nick Johnson and Zachariah Jay.
So this Saturday is our 2nd Annual ZOMBIES show format. What exactly is the format? Let me explain. The improvisers dress like zombies and have two teams of three people. The teams compete against each other and the audience decides which they like better. After each competition, one improviser on the losing team must "lose" a limb. They do this by tucking their arm inside their sleeve for the remainder of the show. By the end of the night, a lot of folks are performing improv without arms. Best part of all? This year we've got a smog/smoke machine. Creepy!
Oh, and our semi-annual Survivor show (SURVIVOR 4 for those keeping count) is November 19th.
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