Bummer, not one mention of Weird on Top, which has been rocking the valley with improv for almost ten years now. www.weirdontop.net
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"I figured I could teach improv classes here, and within a week every single major improv indie show decided to move to my theater," says Drysdale, whose space now houses Crashbar, Room 101, TNT and many others.
"There was a need for a centralized space," she adds. "I know what it's like to perform at other spaces — either the lights don't work, or the person renting the space doesn't understand what improv is." She says she didn't charge her new tenants one cent more than at their previous locations.
In addition to its upstairs stage, the Clubhouse boasts a downstairs area where performers can kibbitz between shows. An improv night there can generate from $40 to $90 in donations from both attendees and performers, which then goes toward a show's monthly rental fees. With improv programmed daily, at 13 shows a week, there's enough gross to cover the Clubhouse's overhead (the lease, janitorial services).
PHOTO BY KATE LANE
Mark David Christenson, left, and Ryan Hitchcock perform at the Clubhouse in improv team Street Lightning. The venue opened in January to host indie improv shows but hundreds of teams still fight for stage time.
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Clubhouse
1107 N. El Centro Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Category: Bars and Clubs
Region: Hollywood
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Improv Olympic West
6366 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Category: Bars and Clubs
Region: Hollywood
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6560 Hollywood Blvd., Second Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90028
Category: Theaters
Region: Hollywood
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As the superintendent, Drysdale doesn't pull rank but actually submits her improv team, Elephants Gerald (which she performs with Suzi Barrett), to the long waiting lists of other Clubhouse shows. Crashbar, for example, has 435 teams pining for stage time in the months ahead.
The rundown of most of these improv shows is pretty standard — four to eight teams performing 15 to 18 minutes each. Variations are slight: Crashbar will feature one stand-up comedian in the middle of its improv sets. CAMP!, late Friday nights at the Clubhouse, is a smorgasbord of sketch, improv and stand-up.
"You're doing something that's a possible nightmare for the audience," says Room 101's Nick Mandernach about the risk of practicing improv. The trick to winning the crowd, no matter how ridiculous a scene may be, lies in "how comfortable and confident you are."
Even though most of the alt-improvisers have a penchant for styles they learned at the major improv think tanks, these indie rooms are vying to be fonts of experimentation. At the forefront is the Clubhouse's Shapeshift Improv on Thursday nights, which invites groups to invent new forms based on a list of predetermined absurdist names, such as the Whirligig, Dos Ojos or the Mississippi.
Mandernach also points out how improvisers are emulating styles that are uniquely inherent to L.A.'s new wave, i.e., the Convoy, a fast-paced, multiscene format born from the UCB group of that name, which aims to shoot far from its initial suggestion. There's also the Dasariski (created by IO West's trio of the same name, Robert Dassie, Rich Talarico and Craig Cackowski), a slow, long-form style that feels more like a regular theatrical play. Drysdale also teaches her own variation of improv called Fuck Me Listening, which encourages players to focus astutely on each other's words, as though they have a crush on their scene partner.
"My philosophy on improv is that it's still new and changing daily," Drysdale says. "As soon as one school of thought emerges, a backlash school of thought arises. We're still in the infancy."
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