Time to rally the troupes

It’s said that in comedy timing is everything, and that’s certainly the case for improvisational comedy in Los Angeles. Start with a keen Hollywood interest in anything improv-related -- think “Curb Your Enthusiasm” or “Significant Others.” Add a wave of improv-trained actors pouring into L.A. for the current pilot season. Top it off with troupes gearing up for two upcoming improv festivals and you have local stages stocked with a staggering range of jabbering, jump-cutting, hair-trigger talent. For anyone looking for laughs beyond the old standby of stand-up, there’s never been a better time.

“It’s like the Chicago improv scene in the ‘70s,” says Rob Adler, whose troupe, Slew, is one of seven acts headed to the prestigious Chicago Improv Festival next month. In June, the best from around the country will perform in L.A. in the second annual Los Angeles Improv Comedy Festival. This month, the city is attracting improvisational actors like moths to the flickering flame of industry notice, and some of the faces you’ve seen on TV will hit the local haunts to hone their improv talents.

The menacing janitor from “Scrubs”? You’ll find him engaged in lightning-fast free association with a group called Beer Shark Mice at the Improv Olympic West. The guy who voices Homer Simpson? Swing by Second City and listen to him dub new dialogue over old movies once a month as a cast member in “Totally Looped.” “Saturday Night Live” alumni Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell? They’ve been known to drop in for an evening of long-form improvisation with the Groundlings’ “Crazy Uncle Joe Show.”

For a long time, the television industry saw improv comedy as something slightly above mime and just below dinner theater -- it was more than happy to plunder the ranks to cast shows like “Saturday Night Live” or “MAD TV” but reluctant to showcase the art form itself. Which may have you asking, what exactly is improvisational comedy as an art form, anyway?

Pure improvisation is simply stepping out on stage with no preconceived notion, no planned dialogue and no prepared material of any kind (as opposed to “sketch comedy” that is conceived and written ahead of time). The humor often comes from watching the participants engage in an impromptu jousting match of spontaneous theater, dodging and weaving, thrusting and parrying, thinking and acting in the moment.

The fun of a live improv performance is watching the actors struggle with the unexpected, much like a juggler who is thrown a live chicken or a chainsaw alongside his juggling balls. The audience anticipates some degree of failure, and the comedy that results often comes from the truth of the moment. It’s hardly the kind of format that lends itself to the formulaic world of the half-hour sitcom.

Just consider a recent night of multimedia mayhem called “Graceland” at the Improv Olympic West, where a screen above the stage is showing some spur-of-the-moment shenanigans:

A man wearing a toga and a crown of leaves walks Hollywood Boulevard carrying a microphone. A camera crew trails him. “Debate?” he asks passersby. “You take shorts, I’ll take toga. Go.” He spots a man wearing a handkerchief knotted around his head. “Care to debate? I’ll take eucalyptus leaves, you take do-rag. Go.”

It was funny, we swear it was -- and the audience thought so too, they ate it up, howling with delight each time the toga-clad “master debater” engaged another hapless bystander. But if it doesn’t sound particularly funny, that’s because improvisation is so deliciously in the moment, so right-here right-now that it practically dies on the page.

Part of “Curb Your Enthusiasm’s” success comes from that basic improv tenet: Play a scene truthfully and the humor will come. Instead of beating out a full script, each 30-minute HBO show is improvised from an eight- or nine-page story outline, leaving the nuances of dialogue and character interaction to carry the show. Four seasons later, “Curb” is achingly funny in a way that no writers room in Hollywood could match. “People don’t watch ‘Curb’ because it’s improvised,” says Jeff Garlin, series executive producer and costar. “They watch it because it’s funny.”

“Curb” has also brought to the L.A. improv community what the “Law & Order” series brought to the New York City acting community: jobs and a certain cachet. Each episode requires fresh victims for Larry David’s character flaws: sales clerks to be argued with, waiters to stiff, party guests to insult, network heads to offend and entertainment industry types to anger, malign and mistreat.

“We mostly use people that are here in Los Angeles,” says Garlin (a Second City-trained improviser who used to host a show called “Jeff Garlin’s Combo Platter” at the Improv Olympic West). “I’d say at least a quarter of the actors who do the show have Second City as a background, half have some sort of improv as a background and another quarter have never done it before.”

With “Curb” paving the way, other improv-heavy shows began to appear around the dial. “Reno 911!” (a parody of the “Cops” ride-along format) airs on Comedy Central. Bravo launched its entry into the “sit-prov” genre two weeks ago with “Significant Others,” a show that jumps among the lives of four couples as they go about married life and therapy, with eight actors improvising off a one-page outline. Improvisers are also in demand for reality shows (like “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance” and “The Joe Schmo Show”) where supporting cast members who can think on their feet are critical to the success of a show’s ruse.

This new emphasis on improv makes the current pilot casting season (January to April, the time when actors make themselves available to casting directors and talent agents in hopes of snaring a TV role) a gold rush of employment opportunities for improv-trained actors.

“People come out here in droves for pilot season,” said Jane Jenkins, a casting director who just finished casting the pilot for an improvised sitcom for Rob Reiner that started taping this week. “This is the place to be in February and March.”

Reiner, whose resume includes directing the all-improvised 1984 mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap,” has been a fan of the genre since he founded his own improv troupe at 19. “Improv is one of the best ways for young actors to show their wares in a town where people are constantly looking for talent and casting so many projects,” he said. “I think it’s a good way for young talent to get noticed. This is the place to go.”

For decades, one of the best places to go to get noticed has been L.A.’s homegrown troupe the Groundlings, a cadre of crack comedy jockeys whose ability to create memorable characters (Will Ferrell and Cheri Oteri’s Spartan cheerleaders and Paul Reubens’ Pee-wee Herman) is matched only by their ability to cobble together an improvised tune like they did a while back:

When asked for a suggested line of dialogue, an audience member shouts: “Soylent green is people!” The half-dozen people on stage stand stock still for an instant and then slowly begin to pace the stage, shuffling, walking in circles and muttering to themselves until the band strikes up a tune. Suddenly one man steps to the edge of the stage and belts out in a Broadway-quality voice: “What ever happened to that fellow? Oh my gosh he’s Soylent yellow!” The rest join in for rousing musical number that manages to include a Charlton Heston impression and a rainbow of Soylent products.

As part of the improv influx, for at least a couple of months, L.A. audiences can sample the work of groups like Boston-based Improv Asylum. After six years in Beantown, four of its members have come west to the Improv Olympic West for an open-ended run. “It’s a lot easier to have access to casting directors there than in Boston,” said Chet Harding, an Improv Asylum founding member who’s making a new home in the Golden State.

Another benefit for local audiences is that improvisers still perform at their home theaters even after they’ve gotten a taste of small-screen success. Groundling Brian Palermo was cast on “Significant Others” and remains part of the “Crazy Uncle Joe Show” (and his “Uncle Joe” cast mate Ted Michaels has a recurring role as Kenny on the sitcom “According to Jim”). Rick Kuhlman, Kristina Hayes and James Grace appeared in Fox’s “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance” (as the groom’s father, sister and best friend respectively) last month. Now you can catch them on Thursday nights at Improv Olympic West as part of the “Graceland” cast. Thursday is when you’ll find Ryan Stiles and Drew Carey of “The Drew Carey Show” hosting a two-hour, all-improvised show at the Improv on Melrose.

Next month, as the showcases and performances associated with pilot season begin to slow down, festival season will start to ramp up, first with the Chicago Improv Festival (April 30 through May 9) followed by the Los Angeles Improv Comedy Festival (June 6 through 13).

This year’s Chicago fest will include several local acts that are still in regular performances around town, such as the “Crazy Uncle Joe Show” at the Groundlings, “Totally Looped” at Second City and “Slew,” a free-form, slowly evolving improvisational exploration (which comes off like playground recess on LSD) at the Hothouse Spontaneous Theatre Conservatory in North Hollywood. On a recent Saturday night, a helping of “Slew” kicked off this way:

The four people on stage do not speak. They writhe, they undulate and they engage in a slow-motion mock battle waged with make-believe axes, but do not say a word. Taking inspiration from the trippy live music accompanying them, they sway and crouch, communicating in burbles, grunts and thumps like something off an early Pink Floyd album. Finally, 2 1/2 minutes in, the first words are uttered. “Don’t scare it away!”

“I think the L.A. scene is really growing and it’s really encouraging to see,” says Jonathan Pitts, co-founder and executive director of the Chicago festival. “The quality and variety of acts has really grown over the years. I’m very excited about them. They’re doing great work.” High praise considering that Chicago -- birthplace of Second City, the Improv Olympic and the American improvisational comedy scene -- is improv’s version of Mecca.

But perhaps there’s no better testament to the vibrant improv community that’s taken root here than the Los Angeles Improv Comedy Festival, which began last year as a three-day event. In only its second year, it has expanded to a full week and will welcome its first international improv troupe -- from the Philippines. Performers already scheduled include Amy Poehler (“Saturday Night Live”), the Upright Citizens Brigade, Andy Dick (“Less Than Perfect”), Jeff Garlin and Shelley Berman (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”).

“I think it only serves the work that there is more than one place in the country for a major improv scene to exist,” Pitts said of L.A’s burgeoning improv community. “If you only have the New York Yankees and no one else, what kind of league is that? Chicago will always be the New York Yankees, but it’s great to have other great teams.”

To use Pitts’ baseball analogy, right now Los Angeles is doing the improv equivalent of assembling an all-star team, starting spring training and practicing for two World Series all at once.

And you live two blocks from the stadium.

Batter up.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

What to expect -- besides the unexpected -- and who you might see

Dozens of improv veterans have gone on to TV and film, from “Saturday Night Live” to “Elf.” The actors sweating on stage this month might be on prime time next fall.

THE CRAZY UNCLE JOE SHOW

The Groundlings go for long-form improv. A suggestion invokes three separate scenes, which spin off into others, which may (or may not) come back together. Named because it’s kind of like the “crazy uncle” to the Groundlings regular, more structured format, its core cast is Roy Jenkins, Ted Michaels, Christen Nelson, Brian Palermo and Jordan Black supplemented by a roster that has included Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan.

When: Wednesdays, 8 p.m.

Where: The Groundlings Theatre, 7307 Melrose Ave., L.A.

Price: $11

Info: (323) 934-4747

SLEW

Faithful to the original work of improv’s founding mother Viola Spolin, the little troupe that could embarks on a 45-minute somersault of long-form, free-form organic improv that clears the junk drawer of the collective conscious. It’s the closest thing to the nutty nonsense of your dreams as you’re likely to experience with your eyes open. Rob Adler, Angela Alverson, Karen Foreman, J. Anthony McCarthy, Sam Narvall and Donna Jo Thorndale.

When: Saturdays, 8 p.m.

Where: Hothouse Spontaneous Theatre Conservatory,

4934 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood

Price: $5

Info: (818) 508-6612

TOTALLY LOOPED

A cast composed of Second City and “Saturday Night Live” veterans dub (or “loop,” in industry lingo) improvised dialogue to movie and television clips they’ve never seen as they’re projected onto a big screen -- to hilarious effect. Performed by Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer Simpson), Richard Kuhlman, Deb Lacusta, Joe Liss, Gail Matthius, Rick Overton and Angela V. Shelton. Created and directed by Vince Waldron.

When: April 15, 8 p.m.

Where: Second City Theatre,

8156 Melrose Ave., L.A.

Price: $5

Info: (323) 658-8190

TROOP!

They met at Emerson College in Boston; six years later these sketch artists call L.A. home but take their comic shenanigans to festivals and audiences across the country. (Past sketches have included an argument between lime and sour apple flavors over which one can lay claim to the color green.) This year they’re headed to the Chicago Improv Festival, and before they go, they’re unleashing some new material on the hometown crowd. Kevin Chesley, Jason Dugre, Britt Erickson, Steve Sabellico, Bryan Shukoff and Brent Simons

When: 8:30 p.m. on April 14

and 21

Where: McCadden Place Theater, 1157 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood

Price: $10

Info: (323) 463-2942

BEER SHARK MICE

If you don’t think anything can move faster than the speed of light, you probably haven’t sat in on this show -- a mirthful sprint through the brainpans of Mike Coleman (“American Wedding”), Patrick Finn (“Ed”), Neil Flynn (“Scrubs”), Peter Hulne (“Celtic Pride”) and David Koechner (“Saturday Night Live”), a quintet that can make something as simple as the act of crossing the street into a side-splitting battle of the one-and-a-half wits.

When: Saturdays, 9 p.m.

Where: Improv Olympic West, 6366 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Price: $10

Info: (323) 962-7560

GRACELAND

Combining short films and rapid-fire live sketch, “Graceland” features several cast members from “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance.” Whether it’s “man on the street” debates conducted in a toga, a “Fear Factor” parody called “Beer Factor” (in which contestants need to get drunk, break into someone’s house and make a grilled cheese sandwich in the dark) or a reality show about two men in a shopping cart, it’s a strange melange of mirth and mayhem. James Grace, Kristina Hayes, Rick Kuhlman, Deb Hiett, Andy Cochrane, Paula Christensen and James Bonadio.

When: Thursdays, 9:30 p.m.

Where: Improv Olympic West, 6366 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Price: $5

Info: (323) 962-7560

IMPROV ASYLUM

The boys and girl from Beantown take up residence at the Improv Olympic West for an open-ended run of their best-of show called “Wicked Effin Funny.” The transcontinental cast includes Chet Harding, Brian Frates, Ryan Gaul and Lisa Schurga. Catch them before they get real jobs.

When: Fridays, 8 p.m. through April. Dark March 26.

Where: Improv Olympic West, 6366 Hollywood Blvd.,

Hollywood

Price: $10

Info: (323) 962-7560

PLEASE, IT’S PILOT SEASON

A sketch show about a bunch of people who put up a show during pilot season. Watch it instead of reading this article. Written and directed by Lenny Schmidt and featuring John McDonnell, Tess Rafferty, Flip Schultz, Sean Copeland and Katheryn J. Brockett.

When: Tuesday and March 30,

8 p.m.

Where: Second City Theatre,

8156 Melrose Ave., L.A.

Price: $5

Info: (323) 658-8190

THE SPOLIN PLAYERS

If you’re interested in the historical underpinnings of today’s improvisational comedy scene, tuck into this one-night-only appearance of the Spolin Players. In her book “Improvisation for the Theater,” Viola Spolin created many of today’s improv “games” or exercises and the Spolin Players make funny the way they used to back in the good old days.

When: Saturday, 9:30 p.m.

Where: Second City Theatre,

8156 Melrose Ave., L.A.

Price: $5

Info: (323) 658-8190

TOTALLY IMPROV

Drew Carey, Ryan Stiles and fellow “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” cast members mix it up in a two-hour show that mixes special guests and stand-up comedy with traditional improv games.

When: Most Thursdays, 8 p.m. (call to confirm)

Where: Hollywood Improv,

8162 Melrose Ave., L.A.

Price: $15

Info: (323) 651-2583