FUNNY: Improv Olympic’s ‘Whirled News Tonight’ makes cut-ups out of cut-outs from the day’s headlines and no newspaper is safe…not even this one.
By Danny Gallagher, McKinney Courier-Gazette
Improv Olympic’s “Whirled News Tonight” strives not only to be funny but also satirical and topical with its improvised take on the day’s popular and obscure headlines.Think of it as kind of a fair and balancing act.“I guess the trick of it is if it’s not funny, then no one cares what the message is,” said troupe founder and director Jason Chin. “The funny comes first, but the drive to be funny, I think we aim for good theater and by aiming for good theater, we become very funny. If you just aim for funny, then you become Mark Russell.”
The improv comedy show from Chicago takes its cues from the day’s newspapers, which means they have an endless supply of material to draw from as long as the presses don’t stop.
“On stage, we don’t hold anything back,” troupe member Marla Caceres said.The show comes to McKinney at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 18 at the McKinney Performing Arts Center.
The show lets audience members clip stories from a stack of newspapers before the curtain goes up and tack them on a bulletin board for the cast to use. Each cast member pulls a story off the board, reads the headline and first few paragraphs aloud and then acts a scene based on that story.Chin wanted to combine improv comedy with topical humor for a long time, but was told over and over again that it couldn’t be done.
“At the time, I had done a ton of improv shows in Chicago, but my big love was politics and satire and I was wondering if the two could work,” he said. “I was told they could not because satire needed such a pointed point-of-view and it would be tough to get across without a script.”Chin collected a group of comedians anyway who he thought possessed the knack of improvising and the knowledge of current events for the perfect blend of his performances. The cast includes a wide variety of performers from all backgrounds, including some Harvard graduates, the son of a former Connecticut state treasurer who served under Howard Dean and even a McKinney native, Shane Wilson, who won’t be in town for the McKinney show since he recently became a father for the first time.
Five years later, his show has been regularly performing at the Del Close Theater in Chicago and touring the country in red and blue states alike.“We don’t all agree on things,” troupe member Arnie Niekamp said. “Usually whatever is funny about something, that’s what wins out really.”The show features a cavalcade of bipartisan riffing with sketches and skits from familiar faces from the front page such as Sarah Palin and Barack Obama to obscure issues that barely made it to the front section.
“We’re more like equal opportunity mocking,” Caceres said. “It really makes you look at things a little more objectively. It makes you break things down. We had a scene recently where someone played Obama and asked him some basic questions and another guy turns around says, ‘Oh he sounds so inspirational’ and Obama now is just talking about things that are so mundane but are so inspirational, like a halo would appear over him at any moment. So even though I’m voting for Obama, I can see that objectively with a satirist’s eye.”Part of the challenge comes from stories that don’t seem appropriate for a comedy show, such as natural disasters and the never-ending tragedy of war, Chin said.“In many ways, it makes it more human, which I like as well in that we can tackle very sad stories,” Chin said. “If we were writing it, we could just say we’re not doing that story, but in an improv show when a sad story comes up, we have to do it. So we can portray the humanity or feeling about it and still be funny without being cruel or exploitative.”Another challenge for the actors is finding new ways to make fun of or make fun with characters that seem to have a set up a permanent residence in the national spotlight, Niekamp said.“Sometimes we don’t want to do the same jokes over and over again, although we have different audiences all the time and they wouldn’t know if we are recycling jokes. For us we’re into doing something new and spontaneous and surprising ourselves and sharing that energy with the audience,” Niekamp said.
No story is too small. A recent show at a Chicago high school featured the cast ripping stories from the school’s student-run newspaper, Caceres said.“They had something about a wall they had in high school where students would write messages to each other,” she said. “So we turned it into a character where there would be a message that was from the future on the wall and in another scene, it was the Berlin Wall, separating the east and west sides of the high school.”That means this very newspaper you’re holding could become a victim in Saturday’s show.“There’s always something to be made fun of,” Niekamp said, “just about anything.”
Contact Danny Gallagher at dgallagher@acnpapers.com.
By Danny Gallagher, McKinney Courier-Gazette
Improv Olympic’s “Whirled News Tonight” strives not only to be funny but also satirical and topical with its improvised take on the day’s popular and obscure headlines.Think of it as kind of a fair and balancing act.“I guess the trick of it is if it’s not funny, then no one cares what the message is,” said troupe founder and director Jason Chin. “The funny comes first, but the drive to be funny, I think we aim for good theater and by aiming for good theater, we become very funny. If you just aim for funny, then you become Mark Russell.”
The improv comedy show from Chicago takes its cues from the day’s newspapers, which means they have an endless supply of material to draw from as long as the presses don’t stop.
“On stage, we don’t hold anything back,” troupe member Marla Caceres said.The show comes to McKinney at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 18 at the McKinney Performing Arts Center.
The show lets audience members clip stories from a stack of newspapers before the curtain goes up and tack them on a bulletin board for the cast to use. Each cast member pulls a story off the board, reads the headline and first few paragraphs aloud and then acts a scene based on that story.Chin wanted to combine improv comedy with topical humor for a long time, but was told over and over again that it couldn’t be done.
“At the time, I had done a ton of improv shows in Chicago, but my big love was politics and satire and I was wondering if the two could work,” he said. “I was told they could not because satire needed such a pointed point-of-view and it would be tough to get across without a script.”Chin collected a group of comedians anyway who he thought possessed the knack of improvising and the knowledge of current events for the perfect blend of his performances. The cast includes a wide variety of performers from all backgrounds, including some Harvard graduates, the son of a former Connecticut state treasurer who served under Howard Dean and even a McKinney native, Shane Wilson, who won’t be in town for the McKinney show since he recently became a father for the first time.
Five years later, his show has been regularly performing at the Del Close Theater in Chicago and touring the country in red and blue states alike.“We don’t all agree on things,” troupe member Arnie Niekamp said. “Usually whatever is funny about something, that’s what wins out really.”The show features a cavalcade of bipartisan riffing with sketches and skits from familiar faces from the front page such as Sarah Palin and Barack Obama to obscure issues that barely made it to the front section.
“We’re more like equal opportunity mocking,” Caceres said. “It really makes you look at things a little more objectively. It makes you break things down. We had a scene recently where someone played Obama and asked him some basic questions and another guy turns around says, ‘Oh he sounds so inspirational’ and Obama now is just talking about things that are so mundane but are so inspirational, like a halo would appear over him at any moment. So even though I’m voting for Obama, I can see that objectively with a satirist’s eye.”Part of the challenge comes from stories that don’t seem appropriate for a comedy show, such as natural disasters and the never-ending tragedy of war, Chin said.“In many ways, it makes it more human, which I like as well in that we can tackle very sad stories,” Chin said. “If we were writing it, we could just say we’re not doing that story, but in an improv show when a sad story comes up, we have to do it. So we can portray the humanity or feeling about it and still be funny without being cruel or exploitative.”Another challenge for the actors is finding new ways to make fun of or make fun with characters that seem to have a set up a permanent residence in the national spotlight, Niekamp said.“Sometimes we don’t want to do the same jokes over and over again, although we have different audiences all the time and they wouldn’t know if we are recycling jokes. For us we’re into doing something new and spontaneous and surprising ourselves and sharing that energy with the audience,” Niekamp said.
No story is too small. A recent show at a Chicago high school featured the cast ripping stories from the school’s student-run newspaper, Caceres said.“They had something about a wall they had in high school where students would write messages to each other,” she said. “So we turned it into a character where there would be a message that was from the future on the wall and in another scene, it was the Berlin Wall, separating the east and west sides of the high school.”That means this very newspaper you’re holding could become a victim in Saturday’s show.“There’s always something to be made fun of,” Niekamp said, “just about anything.”
Contact Danny Gallagher at dgallagher@acnpapers.com.
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