Scripting the unscripted

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This article was published 14/07/2023 (1025 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Improv has grown in popularity in recent years with shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Last One Laughing it was only natural that someone would do an improv show at the Fringe.

“This is my group’s fourth year doing Fringe and every year we do an original piece. All four of us doing the play, have been involved in improv for a very long time and so we wanted to do something that way in the improv genre, but we’re also very much fans of subversion comedy,” said director and actor Alex Coates.

“We thought it would be very funny if we would almost kind of make fun of the improv troupes and even bigger than that we would do an improv show that was completely scripted.”

A Masters Advanced Class To Beginners Improv pokes fun of the stereotypes found in improv such as always using movie quotes, always going to the same genre, or the prevalence of certain jokes or themes.

“A lot of times when you see or talk about improve and the general medium and things like that we just wanted to poke fun at the whole genre,” said Coates.

The play was written about eight months ago by Coates. The first draft was worked on by Coates, his brother and their good friend, both of whom are in the show. Different versions are worked on until there is a working script and then the production of the show begins.

Coates said the production, advertising, venue selection, and leg work are the most stressful things about doing the show. He said being in front of a crowd is the easy part.

“Once I get on the stage that’s almost the stress-free part and it’s almost I feel at home.”

What people can expect in the play is a lot of dumb humour, according to Coates.

“It’s almost something that I’ve started to pride myself on over the last three years. There’s a lot of more dramatic plays out there and serious ones and that’s absolutely fine, but with everything that has been going on in the past couple of years it’s almost a source of pride in me that all I want to do is I want to provide a good 45 minutes to an hour of just stupid laughs where you don’t have to worry about anything. Where it’s dumb comedy, you can kind of forget everything and you just laugh at a few people being idiots on stage.”

The show will run from July 19 to 30 at The Output at Video Pool Media Arts Centre. Only eight shows will be performed during that time frame. Coates cautioned that there is course language so it is not appropriate for children.

For next year’s Fringe, Coates has already written two plays. One is about slaying a dangerous dragon and is a spoof on Dungeons and Dragons called Hey! Let’s Kill a Dragon. The other is called Action Movie Adlibs where basically every night the actors will do an action movie play with 20 to 30 prompts at the beginning of the show where they’ll need answers from the crowd. The answers will populate and influence the story.