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Photo courtesy Alecia Altstaetter
Sports Bra
Sports Bra
Surprisingly, a fair number of people have made out with an Orlando Bloom poster.”
As shared by Shannon Cassels, the above is but one revelation she and her fellow members of Milwaukee female improvisational comedy group Sports Bra discovered from the audiences for whom they've been performing since their 2019 inception. The next opportunity to see Sports Bra will be their 8 p.m. show on Thursday December 8 at Sugar Maple (441 E. Lincoln Ave.).
Sports Bra
The anecdote regarding multiple Sports Bra attendees playing smoochy face with a 2D representation of the Lord of the Rings actor comes from the set-up Cassels, Renee Reszel, Mia Serafina and Alecia Altstaetter employ for their performances. Cassels continues, “The premise is that the audience is invited to our ‘sleep over party’ where we all relive our shared worst and funniest times. We find the comedy in the specifics and the universal themes.” The slumber party conceit comports with the source of Sports Bra's memories on which to draw for their skits.
“We always felt that our best and funniest stories were from our formative years: middle school, high school, college, the awkward adolescent years,” Cassels offers. The sorts of memories gleaned from those years doubtless differ markedly from those of male improv players; so, too, for the dynamic of an improv troupe without guy members. On keeping Sports Bar a single-sex enterprise, Reszel offers, "Often when performing with a mostly male group, women can be made to fill the support roles in a scene. Here, with Sports Bra, we can do any role, any character. We become every parent, members of every clique and every anthropomorphized tampon."
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Reszel remark points to the adult direction in which Sports Bra dates often go. “Well, we are definitely an 18 and over show,” Cassels admits. “The audience stories are uncensored and can get pretty raunchy. We act embarrassed but we secretly love it. Once we got a story about a used condom falling on the floor at prom. We acted it out graphically.”
Raunch aside, the comedic form in which Sports Bra engages—and in which the members had and continue to have involvement via ComedySportz Milwaukee, ImprovMKE. Interchange Theater, improv Olympic, Second City, Upright Citizens Brigade and elsewhere—has given the act's members tools by which to negotiate living offstage as well.
“Not to sound like a cult member," Serafina disclaims, "but the philosophies of improv have changed my life. It has made us all better communicators who seek to understand the ideas of others instead of bulldozing them. It teaches creative spontaneity and the power that comes it giving and taking control in spaces of collaboration.” Absorbing all that isn't instantaneous, however. “None of this is learned over night, and I think acknowledging that improv skills, and comedy in general, are things that you grow and cultivate over time is another thing that is applicable to others learnable areas in our lives,” she continues.
In the Moment
Serafina’s explanation of improv's appeal for both performers and viewers is compelling as her endorsement of its guidelines making for helpful life guideposts. “Because improv is made up on the spot, the stakes are high!” she emphasizes. “The audience is also in on the creation from the beginning; they give us the suggestions, and we go from there. Creating something spontaneously is powerful. It only exists in the moment, so you never see the same show twice.”
And regardless the proximity and prominence of ComedySoprtz as a Milwaukee improv institution, per Sports Bra’s somewhat similar moniker, Altstaetter says, “We chose Sports Bra as a name because it was the one thing that symbolized the teenage years: sweaty, smelly, uncomfortably tight, but cute when worn alone or with a cardigan.”
Sports Bra’s members are also pretty flexible. “We improvised at a bar directly across from the bathroom, at a prom after party competing with a casino night roulette table, and a basement in Mequon,” Altstaetter recalls. As for the stage they will be taking next, she enthuses, “Sugar Maple, by comparison, is going to be amazing. Basically, we will go anywhere.” She makes readers the offer to book the troupe by adding, “DM us on Instagram! @SportsBraComedy.”
Though they won't be including any guest improvisers at Sugar Maple, here are the ladies of they are with an extra male player in tow for a 2021 show at Interchange Theater...
