Impro and I
By Cheryl Faris
It all started with J.R.R. Tolkien. My love affair with all things Tolkien started during my dimly-recollected college years, and my work with Impro wasn’t QUITE that long ago. But some time back (2005 ) I saw an ad for something called Fellowship! A Musical Parody of the Fellowship of the Ring™ and took myself there. Ah, yes, I loved it! Fellowship! was extremely funny and had great songs… and it was a show with heart. It combined laughs, liveliness, and deep affection for the genre. I brought my family, I brought my friends, I bought the CD and the t-shirt, I followed it to a new theater… and then it was gone. Disconsolately, I haunted the show’s website to search for signs of its return. And one day there was a note, mentioning that some of the cast were in troupe called Impro Theatre. And that they were doing something called Jane Austen Unscripted.
Those three words: “Jane Austen Unscripted?”
That was all I needed to hear.
I went to the Broad Theater and there they were: Kelly Holden-Bashar, Lisa Fredrickson, Edi Patterson, Ryan Smith. My Pippin and Merry, my Gimli, my Legolas. And they were brilliant! They were no longer hobbits or dwarves or elves; they were suddenly ladies and gents, they were in Regency dress, there was Stephen Kearin riding a horse, and they were IMPROVISING JANE AUSTEN. I had a new passion in life.
My daughter Catherine and I hung around after the show and were total fan-girls with the cast members we knew, who smiled kindly at us as we stammered our praise.
My husband Patrick and I started going to Impro Theatre shows wherever in Los Angeles I could find them. Twilight Zone Improvised freaked me out — I still remember Lisa and Stephen turning into giant bugs, and Ryan as a deadly (of course) toy monkey with cymbals. I was thrilled beyond words when my suggestion of “La Brea Tar Pits” was taken for an LA Noir Unscripted location prompt. I wore a feathered headdress for Dorothy Parker Unscripted. And yes, Catherine and I bought Regency dresses and long gloves for the classic, Jane.
After a while, people began to notice me.
Patrick and I never needed to give our names when we went to the Los Feliz studio shows, because we were there every weekend. Every weekend.
Cast members and crew would greet us warmly when they saw us, and chat with us after the shows.
And one fateful day, the multi-talented Dan O’Connor asked me if I’d be interested in joining the Board of Directors. Briefly, yes.
I have served on other boards, and I can tell you that the Impro Board is special. Impro board members are witty and sharp and love to laugh, so meetings (though we do serious work) are fun. It is a passionate and caring group.
I started taking Impro classes — I thought as a Board Member I should know what it was like — and assumed I’d be terrible. But the amazing Lisa shepherded me through the Introduction and into the Core classes… and suddenly it was 2020 and our classes were meeting in Zoom. It was needed; it was life-saving! I was (am) in classes with folks from all over the country, and in some cases all over the world. Improvising Shakespeare became my passion (anyone wanna hear “Who’s on First?” in iambic pentameter?) (I didn’t think so). With the teachers’ commitment to understanding a genre through its history and vocabulary, Chekhov finally made sense. RomCom became a delight. Yay, Brian Lohmann! Yay, Paul Rogan!!
Life happened; serious matters happened. Impro Theatre took on a new passion and direction in mid-2020, to reinvent itself as a more diverse, inclusive, equitable, and accessible space. From there, we have a new DEIA Committee, new faculty and classes (“The Black Aesthetic,” taught by Tatiana Godfrey, was eye-opening), new faculty members, and a new sense of direction with our first-ever Executive Director (keep an eye out for that announcement soon!). Unchanged amid the changes is the combination of intelligence and wit and caring and love for the genres that makes Impro’s work unique in the world.
And I’m still here! Still happily taking classes, still serving on the Board of Directors, and more thrilled than I can say that Jane Austen Unscripted will mark our return to live performing. I’ll be there in the Garden of the Garry Marshall Theatre — several times! (Every show is different, after all.) I’ll be there with family, I’ll be there with friends… and I’ll be with the people of Impro Theatre who have come to be such a major part of my life.
Impro Theatre.
Jane Austen Unscripted.
Hope to see you there.
