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Extemporaneous Theater Company brings improv to the Magic City

Posted on Sep 29, 2009 in Features

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The Extemporaneous Theater Company LLC is a three-year-old Birmingham improv comedy group that perform totally unscripted shows in many different formats and forms of humor.

“In practice, we’re more like the goofy kids who hang out together on weekends and crack each other up with our silly voices, jokes and shenanigans,” said Douglas O’Neil Jr., chairman for the company.

“We do classic ‘short form’ improv games like you can see on TV, but we also do ‘long form’ improv, which is more like a traditional play — except we have almost no idea what’s going to happen when we go out on stage.  We work together to not only perform in the shows, but to create them.  Each of our long form shows is completely original, and can’t be seen anywhere else but here. We do work hard at what we do — but it’s so much fun, I’m almost embarrassed to call it work.”

Each show is two hours long with only a one-page outline to follow. O’Neil said the only scripting is the cues to lighting and the sound crew for sound effects.

“Christopher Davis, one of ETC’s veteran players, describes improv as ‘advanced Cowboys and Indians’ — we’re playing out a scene with imaginary props in impossible situations, and yet the audience is transported to this strange, altered reality with us.  It’s an experience that traditional scripted theatre just can’t duplicate,” O’Neil said.
O’Neil said he believes being able to perform with improvisation is a useful skill not just for the stage but can be used in everyday life.

“Improv teaches me to have a general idea of where I want to go but not to plan out every single step on how to get there. Nothing we plan works out exactly the way we plan it — there are always unanticipated turns in the road. Improvising a way around or over these obstacles helps us to keep moving forward — even if it’s not the way we planned it to be,” he said.

“Some of the basic rules for improvising on stage are also applicable to everyday situations: listen more than you speak, leave your ego at the door, and accept what you’re given and build on it, to name a few. Employing these strategies in my daily life as well as my artistic endeavors on the stage has helped me immeasurably.”

O’Neil said he wanted to get into comedy since he was a child. He joked about always been sort of a clown as his only defense from his two older sisters while growing up.

“I realized I wanted to do comedy when I could keep my friends and teachers laughing. I took my first theatre class as a senior in high school, and became a theatre major at UAB. Comedies were always my favorite plays, so when I was cast in a local improv troupe, I was hooked,” he said.

ETC bases its shows on audience responses, preferences and suggestions. Some are short-form shows named “Project Codename: VULCAN’S UNDERPANTS” that are based off the feel of the audience.
 

Email: lizzie_212003@yahoo.com