No Lines Improv is back with its new show, “Laughtober” 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15, at the Hutchinson Center for the Arts. Performing is Tom Nelson, Corey Roskamp, Jody Runke and Jill Springer.
What do you need to know? Springer summed it up by saying, “We serve refreshments and we promise to make you laugh.”
When No Lines is mentioned, often the question is asked, What is improv? According to Springer, it’s comedic, live theater.
“It’s where the plot, characters and dialogue of a game, scene or story are made up in the moment, often with the ideas and prompts coming from the audience,” she said. “While we know the outline of each game we play, every time is different because the audience feeds us the context within which to do each scene, so it’s always new, fun and different.”
Springer will serve as host Saturday night. It will be her job to introduce each game or scene.
“... a lot of people think of a game in a different context such as a sport,” she said. “Our games are a bit different than sports, but we use our bodies, voices and brains just like traditional sports. Our games play by different rules, like only answering in the form of a question, guessing your own character when everyone knows who you are but you, speaking in sentences that start with a specific letter of the alphabet and following that sequentially, and things of that nature. We are certainly active, physically and mentally.”
As Springer said earlier while the structure of each game remains the same, the actions within it change oftentimes due to suggestions from the audience. She was quick to point out, there’s no requirement to participate and no one in the audience has to fear being brought on stage if they don’t want to be.
Generally speaking, many of the audience members enjoy participating in the form of volunteering ideas such as a specific place, occasion or character. While there always seems to be someone who yells out an outrageous suggestion, the humor tends to range from PG to PG-13, so it’s typically a family-friendly show.
Interested in learning more about improv? No Lines is looking to add actors to its troupe.
“We are looking for anyone who wants to give this a try,’” Springer said. “You don’t need any experience, just come and try it. You can reach out to any member of the troupe, or message us on our Facebook page.”
