There’s comedy, there’s improv comedy, and then there’s long-form improv comedy. It’s the kind of improv that Kasey Daley calls “the granddaddy of all forms.” And it’s the kind of improv that Daley co-founded Steel City Improv Theater (SCIT) to teach and promote.
First Annual Steel City Improv Festival: Thu., Sept. 19-Sun., Sept. 22. Steel City Improv Theater, 5950 Ellsworth Ave., Shadyside, and Bricolage Productions theater, 937 Liberty Ave., Downtown
Now, in its ninth year, SCIT is launching its inaugural festival to spotlight long-form. The four-day Steel City Improv Fest will host 33 teams, nearly half of them from outside Pittsburgh, from as far away as Los Angeles and Chicago.
Visiting headliners include The Raving Jaynes, an internationally touring, New York City-based troupe specializing in improv-comedy dance, and Devil’s Daughter, an acclaimed team from Chicago.
Over four nights, each festival performance will showcase three troupes. Most teams will stage a single, half-hour play devised on the spot by the performers, based on an audience suggestion.
Like a scripted play, a long-form improv piece “has different beats that all weave together in the end,” said Mike Kauffamn, who with Daley is a festival co-producer.
But it takes time to learn how to do long-form improv, and indeed, SCIT is largely an educational outfit, offering classes along with workshops for businesses. “We don’t teach comedy, we teach improv,” said Daley. Long-form, she said, isn’t about who’s quickest on her feet, but about listening to one’s performance partner and reacting appropriately.
The festival's daytime workshops – eight over the course of the weekend – are in fact a key part of the festival. For Pittsburgh-based performers, the chance to learn under experienced practitioners could be as big a draw as the evening performances, said Daley.
And it’s partly the community that long-form improv fosters that allowed SCIT to draw such a large and distinguished array of teams from the U.S. and Canada for its very first fest.
“I think there’s just wonderful sense of community, even in improv spread across the country,” said Kauffman. “People want to travel to other cities, meet other improvisers, and perform there.”
For instance, Jamie Graham and Amy Larimer started as classically trained professional dancers before forming The Raving Jaynes. They’ve since taken their blend of dance, song, improv, and physical theater all over the U.S. and as far afield as Greece and Sweden. In Pittsburgh, they'll lead a workshop titled "Movement for Improvisers."
The festival runs Thursday through Sunday. The opening and closing nights, at SCIT’s headquarters in Shadyside, will spotlight local teams. Friday and Saturday's shows feature the out-of-town headliners in performances at the larger Bricolage Productions space, Downtown.
