Making a Sceneby Amy Scheer

Actors surprise audiences with clean comedy improv

Northwestern alumni (left to right) Tim Schoenfeld, Sarah Schoenfeld, Steve Hydeen and Nate Schoenfeld  perform regularly as 88improv in the Omaha area and throughout the Midwest.

To put on a play, actors must memorize scripts and determine where emphasis will be placed. Dialogue and movement are honed in hours of rehearsal until, finally, there is no variation. When the curtain rises and the lights come up, a polished performance is revealed, one which the cast and crew will replicate the following night.

To prepare for a weekend show in Omaha, Neb., or a comedy festival in Texas, the actors of 88improv listen to the news. They submit their imaginations to rigorous calisthenics, turning over current events and trivialities of the day. After planning an outline of improvisational games for their show, they arrive relaxed and ready, but not fully prepared for what is to come.

Because what was funny last time—a line, a character choice—will not necessarily amuse tonight’s audience in the same way. The dozens of ideas that raced through Tim Schoenfeld’s brain, of which he used three, will need to be discarded, even if, as might be the case, the audience once again calls out the suggestions “pickle,” “bathroom” and “Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

If a play is a blind date, with each party displaying his or her good side, improvisation is a marriage in its sixth year: still new, yet comfortable—the couple no longer reaching for mouthwash before their morning kiss. The spotlight shines not on one or the other, but is shared.

88improv, in fact, includes a married couple—Tim ’03 and Sarah (Kennedy ’01) Schoenfeld —as well as a pair of siblings (Nate ’02 is Tim’s brother). Steve Hydeen ’02 is practically family; he and Nate roomed together freshman year, and the four have performed together since their years in Black V, a popular improv troupe they helped start at Northwestern. Current students continue the tradition; on a recent visit to campus, 88improv met with the actors, who described to them a comic strategy they often employ.

“Do you know the Café Format?” the students asked, and the 88improv members could only chuckle—they had helped invent it.

Nate moved to Omaha in 2003. The rest of the group, scattered about the Midwest, would converge monthly to perform with him, eventually deciding to pick up their families and settle there permanently.

“At that point, we felt it was important to continue to have this creative expression as part of our lives,” Sarah says. The group intentionally sought out an area not known for improvisation in order to blaze a clean comedic trail.

“We do a different brand,” says Tim. “We don’t do dirty improv. We want to teach the people in Omaha that this is what’s funny.”

“To have people laugh,” says Nate, “we take that very seriously.”

The subtext of these actors’ scripts is unusual: No dreaming of names in lights is detected. A concern for the other takes precedence, and it’s a necessary part of their relationships onstage, as well.

“Improv is very selfless,” says Steve. “It’s about making your teammates look good. No one knows what will happen next. If I make them look good and they make me look good, we all will succeed.”

The audience, craving a laugh, wants them to succeed. They want 88improv to use “pickle” in a scene because their kid yelled it. They want the actors to override mistakes with a quirky gesture, to “make things funny that weren’t funny and make sure the audience is taken care of,” explains Tim.

The troupe prefers long-form improv, which gives them more time—45 minutes or so—to take a topic from the global to the personal, pairing the laughter with context and depth.

“We get out there in the political realm in one scene, but then we’ll do nine scenes about how it comes back to you at home,” says Nate. “We take a tender approach. It’s all funny stuff, but at the same time you can walk away from our show and think life’s not as bad as you thought. We say that having some fun is a fine way to live the American dream.”

When they finish performing, the group gets together to debrief before Sarah and Tim run out of babysitting hours (“dinner and a show,” she calls it). They’ll recall that Nate happened to invite an audience member with Down syndrome onto the stage, and how it didn’t matter that the young man, whose arms should have reached around Nate to animate the scene, didn’t move; everyone had a fantastic time.

Did we rock that out? Check. Did we give the audience the show they deserve?

88improv had, once again, met and exceeded the rules of engagement.

Find upcoming shows or book one at www.88improv.com