Phoenix Improv Festival back for its 8th year

Trophy Wife. (Credit: Nicki Escudero/Metromix)

Sex acts, unnecessary violence and random moments of insanity might not be what you expect from a show at the Herberger Theater. Except when it's the home of the Phoenix Improv Festival.

The three-night event packs in more than 20 improv troupes from across the country. The festival kicks off Thursday, April 16 with an Arizona showcase, featuring nine state troupes performing a variety of improv styles. The rest of the weekend includes performances by troupes from Los Angeles, Chicago and Salt Lake City.

"This is going to be the biggest one we've done," says organizer Stacey Reed, also a performer in troupes Light Rail Pirates, Phoenix Neutrino Project and Mail Order Bride , all of which will perform this year.

"We hope more people are exposed to this as an art form. People who might not venture out to a smaller venue might come because it's at the Herberger Theater and see it as a bigger event and then be exposed to it and fall in love with it and want to see more of it and become addicted."

The weekend focuses on longform improv, which is a little different than the "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" variety, though that style will also be featured.

With longform, audience members supply suggestions to the troupes, who then may create anything from a montage of scenes to one long scene lasting a half-hour. It's more like theater than games.

This year, the festival features "Mad TV"'s Stephnie Weir and improv workshops, including a beginner's workshop.

"Our scene is still at the beginning stages because we're still kind of getting our roots and figuring out what our style is," Reed says. "Our style is emerging as more of a theatrical performance than a quick-and-dirty comedy performance."

Some of the troupes performing:

The Kind Strangers: If you like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "The Glass Menagerie" or other Tennessee Williams plays, the Kind Strangers from Los Angeles make up new scenes in the playwright's style.

Team members have strong theater backgrounds and play character types from Williams' plays.

"A lot of people did (William) Shakespeare and that's fun. But we wanted to do something that no one else was doing," said member Nick Armstrong, who also performs with the troupe Cog. "He has these very defined characters, and it's fun to do an improvised show around that."

Armstrong returns to the Phoenix Improv Festival and has performed in Chicago, San Francisco and New York. "This is a great festival to see great different acts from across the country and see what other people around the United States are doing as far as this art form," Armstrong said.

WeirDass: It can be hard enough being married to someone, but imagine performing improv together. That's exactly what comedy duo WeirDass, made up of husband-and-wife Bob Dassie and Stephnie Weir, does.

WeirDass is from Los Angeles. The two met while taking improv classes. They've performed together for 10 years and been married for eight.

"We have basically an unspoken dialogue and ways to communicate that aren't so overt," Dassie said. "Just being a couple, we deal with each other all the time, so we have a short-hand language that facilitates our performance on-stage."

WeirDass' format consists of a "duologue," where two people are talking interview-style, then it breaks out into a variety of scenes from the opening, in a format called the Harold.

Dassie, who will also be teaching a workshop on group dynamic, said improv is energizing.

"It's such a personal art form, and to see it onstage, there's no other form or theater like that," Dassie said. "It's spontaneous, it's energetic, it's everything you'd want in a sporting event, but it makes you laugh."

Trophy Wife: Trophy Wife is a favorite at the festival because of the chemistry of the group, which has been together for about four years. This is the troupe's third time at the fest.

Trophy Wife also performs a Harold, which consists of an opening and a segment of small scenes that eventually weave together.

"As soon as we all met, we just kind of liked each other, which I just took it in stride, but now I understand that's sort of rare for that to happen," said member Zabeth Russell. "There are usually clashing personalities and personal drama.

"We also just really thought everybody on the team was funny, and we all really understood each other's humor."

Audience members will take something good away from Trophy Wife, she said.

"We're all very good-looking," Russell said. "Barring that, though, people should come to see Trophy Wife's show because we never know what's going to happen and neither does the audience, but we do know that it'll be funny."