Improv Audition Challenge article, Las Vegas CityLife magazine, May 2012

Winging it Improv Audition Challenge beckons beginners and would-be comedians, rather than expert ad-libbers by LISA FERGUSON A group of oddballs piles onto a city bus bound for nowhere. There's a hardcore Latina gangsta sporting the requisite took-one-in-the-leg limp, and a stutter that puts Porky Pig to shame. She's followed onboard by a Japanese kamikaze pilot who (in his mind, at least) is still tearing it up over Pearl Harbor; a leprechaun; a nearly deaf-and-blind old man; and, finally, Scooby Doo. Making sure passengers have the correct change is the least of the bus driver's concerns: He has to pinpoint their personalities using only a few stereotypical hints. Therein resides the potential hilarity of a bit called "Emotional Bus," which plays out onstage most Saturday nights as part of a fledgling comedy/game show called Improv Audition Challenge. Challenge took up residence in the Arts District earlier this year at Theatre 7. It stars five aspiring and professional local comedians and/or actors who perform as a troupe called Gilligan's Rotating Improv Players (or G.R.I.P.). They take the stage each week alongside select audience members -- comedy novices competing for a chance to join the troupe as a "featured member." "We've had people who have sat through the first half of the show and asked if they could be in the second half," said John Gilligan, the troupe's namesake and Challenge co-creator. (Typically, would-be contestants must contact him in advance.) After each half of the show, a contestant-winner is selected. The two battle head-to-head in the finale, when other audience members (and an applause-meter phone app) determine the overall winner, who earns a performance spot for the following week. "This gives everybody the opportunity to jump onstage and see that improv isn't something to be scared of," said Gilligan, a former New York construction worker-turned-actor. "People say, 'I'm not ready [to perform] improv, not realizing that all day, every day, everything you do, you improv. When you run into somebody from the PTA that you don't like, but you have to be friendly, you're going to improv that whole conversation, act it out on the spot, which is what we're doing," he said. Previous Challenge contestants have included a professional ventriloquist and his puppet, and a cross-dresser who took the stage wearing "stockings, a dress, wig, makeup -- the whole thing," said Mike Krasner, a professional comic and co-creator. For the most part, contestants "are people who are trying to further their [entertainment] career and live their dream, and some of the people have never been onstage before," Krasner said. "When they do it, they love it, and they come back again and again and again." Count Hailey Smith among the latter. The 16-year-old Desert Oasis High School sophomore giggled nervously outside the theater before making her Challenge debut recently. "Usually, I'm a funny person, so I hope I get a good experience out of it," she said. Her nerves weren't calmed by the fact that her stay-at-home mother, Cheryl Hathaway, also performed that night -- her second time on the Challenge stage. During Mom's first foray, her obnoxious, high-pitched cackle (it sounded like a porpoise squealing) earned her the nickname "The Dolphinator." "I don't even care if I win," 36-year-old Hathaway said after demonstrating her signature sound before the show. "It's just exciting being up there doing it because I just like making people laugh." The show's format is straightforward: Gilligan hosts ("I drink beer and make smart-ass comments") and introduces the games, while professional improv comic Wayne MacKinnon plays a whistle-blowing referee. His job is to explain the rules of the games, and select G.R.I.P. members and contestants to participate in each round. The games were developed by Krasner (who is also a G.R.I.P. member) and MacKinnon. Among the most popular is "Beastie Rap," when the improv players and contestants divide into teams and see which side can keep an improvised rhyme going the longest. Another, called "Phrases From the Floor," requires a pair of performers to pull from a bucket dialogue suggestions (song lyrics, non sequiturs and such) submitted by audience members and incorporate them, verbatim, into silly scenes. During play, Gilligan rings a bell to signal when a game has gone on too long, or is dying a slow, tortured death. The show gives G.R.I.P. member Ray Love a chance to hone elements of his comedy act in front of a live audience. The Howard University alum moved from Chicago to Vegas last year, and has since performed standup at several area venues, including Big Al's Comedy Club at The Orleans. His dead-on Eddie Murphy-inspired laugh punctuates Challenge skits. The show, he said, helps him develop "depth" in his celebrity impersonations, including Bernie Mac, Bill Cosby and Chris Rock, and is teaching him "to be a great character actor. ... You come in expecting to do improv, and you do a lot of [improv] games, but it's not really improv." "We're not improv people with all of the improv training," Gilligan agreed. "In the truest sense of the word, we're more of a comedy show. We do some improv, that's true. But real improv is based on audience suggestions and kind of tired, old ideas. So what we do is take beginning-improv games and mix in volunteers who are beginners and teach them" about performing comedy. It's also true that Challenge is not exactly improvised: G.R.I.P. members and contestants practice the games prior to each week's show in a parking lot behind the theater. "So there's no surprises," Gilligan said. Or, at least, not many. Although the under-21 set is allowed to perform in the show, Challenge gets raucous, with occasional F-bombs and frequent sexual suggestions. MacKinnon does his best to keep things under control, tossing yellow penalty cards at players as a reminder to keep their language and behavior in check, or advise them when their scene sucked. The action seemed to stymie young Smith, who was clearly stumped during a round of "Phrases From the Floor" after she plucked from the bucket a Soundgarden lyric older than she. She also fell flat during the finale, which saw her trading pirate-speak jabs with fellow contestant Donyea Foster, a 29-year-old aspiring comic who was crowned the evening's Challenge king. Win or lose, the teen's chutzpah was undeniable. At the show's conclusion, Gilligan announced Smith was also invited back to perform the following week -- a move that certainly seemed improvised. Improv Audition Challenge Saturdays, 9 p.m.; Theatre 7, 1406 S. Third St., www.improvauditionchallenge.com, $10