With the success of TV shows like Whose Line Is It, Anyway?, comedy improv, once unheard of, is now a common household term. Almost everyone is familiar with how it goes: comedy is created on-the-spot within a series of highly structured, time-limited improvisational games that are played according to certain rules.
But what happens when you take away the time limits, the rules and the mandate to be funny? Santa Cruz-based Freefall Improvisational Theater has set out to discover just that.
Freefall Improvisational Theater bridges conventional dramatic theater and comedy improvisation in its unscripted, 100% improvised creation of unique long-form pieces. Unlike most improv performances consisting of 10 to 15 short, unrelated scenes in a night, long-form improv takes its time. Each freefall starts with an improvised movement piece and unfolds to involve multiple characters, story lines and settings, with each actor playing many roles in each show.
Freefall members give themselves permission to be comedic or dramatic depending on what is called for. Seamlessly shifting between stories, the Freefall players invent scene after scene, all without knowing what will happen next. In the end, multiple story lines are resolved and a sense of the whole emerges.