IMPROV-22

It’s a very, very busy week ahead. There’s a big, fluffy musical coming to the Marcus Center. There's a one-weekend only staging of The Vagina Monologues. Dale Gutzman has a new show opening just down the street from it that sounds considerably darker. Milwaukee Chamber has a comedy that’s probably considerably darker than that opening at the Broadway Theatre center. The Sunset Playhouse presents Neil Simon in the suburbs starting this week. There’s a lot of comedy opening this week . . . some of it quite dark. 

And somewhere in the midst of it all local funny guy Patrick Schmitz will be hosting another comic isotope at the Alchemist Theatre. Schmitz’s  Sketch-22 has turned into kind of a long-running series. The sketch comedy under pressure premise gets mutated a bit this weekend as Schmitz hosts Improv-22. It sounds a bit like the sketch version, only a bit looser.

The premise is this: 3 coaches (Dave Bogan, Alex Grindeland and Bo Johnson) randomly pick a group of 7 improv comics to work with on a long-form improv game. The coach then has 2 hours to work with the comics on the game. Then at 8pm, the games commence. Each of the three teams does a long-form 22 minute improv. It’s a weird process, but it sounds like a lot of fun for everyone involved. The right compression can do wonderful things for comedy.

Performers are set to include: Josh Barto, Sean Cundy, Nick Firer, Joe Foti, Michael Gau, Desiree Gibson, Anne Graff Ladisa, Kesan Holt, Nina Hunter, Doug Jarecki, Sean Keith, Melissa Kingston, Tyler Kroll, Beth Lewinski, Megan McGee, Andrea Moser, Amanda Olson, Jason Powell, Lee Rowley, Ron Scot Fry, Zack Zupke

The show starts at 8pm and runs through 9:30pm at the Alchemist Theatre.