Organized Chaos On Saturday

In and amidst another respectably busy weekend for theatre openings, First Stage Children’s Theatre’s Improv comedy students will be performing throughout the mid-day this coming Saturday, Performances are free of charge to attend. 

The free improv comedy show starts at 11:45 am with the 7^th grade students. 8^th grades students begin at 1pm. High School Students perform at 2:15pm. The advanced students perform at 3:45.

Organized by local comic actor and playwright Patrick Schmitz, First Stage’s Organized Chaos is a remarkably clever idea. Improv comedy classes aren’t generally something one associates with kids that haven’t graduated from high school. One might not expect such comedy to be terribly entertaining, but as witnessed in performance at the Milwaukee Comedy Fest over the years, the kids can (or at least have the opportunity to) get away with more sophisticated improv than that of their adult improv counterparts.

Adult improv groups have the adult end of comedy open to them, which usually generates the easiest laughs. As a result, quite often the adult improv group goes for the adult stuff and ends up coming across as being very one-dimensional. Kids doing improv tend to be limited in doing safer subject matter. This limitation can end up resulting in some pretty sophisticated stuff. When high school improv is good, it can be solidly better than most adult improv.

The performances over the course of this coming Saturday are an interesting opportunity to see the evolution of comic performance from 7^th to 12^th grade.

Organized Chaos performs November 20^th 11:30 am – 4:30 pm at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center on 325 West Walnut.