On Tuesday, December 10th Prairie Theatre Exchange opened a new show that takes on the holiday rom-com genre.
From the heartwarming aspects of holiday movies, to the kitschy, to the predictable, to the improbable and comedic... and all points in between. This show will explore everything that is on your personal wish list of what a holiday movie should contain.
Called Outside Joke’s A Christmas Miracle: An Improvised Holiday Rom Com, this is a show that is, as the name suggests, completely improvised. Featuring the remarkable Outside Joke Improv Troupe, this show promises to offer laughs, hijinks, and antics that will keep you fully enthralled and entertained. Audience members will see a production that has never been seen before, and will never be seen again, as the show changes from performance to performance.
Outside Joke consists of five actors and one musician. The members of the cast are Andrea Del Capo, Chadd Henderson, Toby Hughes, Robyn Slade, and Jane Testar. The musician on stage for this production is Sarah Michaelson who is also known as DJ Mama Cutsworth.
Many of the cast met while they were students at Kelvin High School. As Jane Testar explains, “A bunch of us met at Kelvin High School. Chad, Toby, Andrea, and I all went to Kelvin....and there was a beginning of an improv team there. We were all members there, and then it wasn’t until a couple of years later, after high school we decided to start jamming, and we formed from there slowly.”
The excellence in improv comes from the fact that Outside Joke have known each other for many years and are in many ways a surrogate family to each other. They rehearse improv to ensure the story's structure will work. “We have learned the Joseph Campbell ‘The Heroes Journey’ kind of thing. So, we can practice things like the inciting incident...oh we need to add a villain here. We need to further the story in those kinds of ways. So, we practice structure.”
A Christmas Miracle: An Improvised Holiday Rom Com is inspired by the Hallmark Christmas movies and all the usual plot lines and tropes that become well known to anyone who has seen a few. Outside Joke takes suggestions from the audience and then builds the show out from there. It is all spontaneous, and the actors on stage must keep track of each character's name, what the characters do for work, while at the same time remembering what occurred earlier in the show to ensure that the plot and line have a cohesiveness. It makes for a show that is breathtakingly daring.
In preparation for the show, the members of Outside Joke watched hours and hours of holiday movies and figured out the tropes and reoccurring themes that typically occur with the holiday genre. As Testar explains, “For the show we are doing right now, we watched a billion Hallmark movies and figured out the structure, which isn’t that hard, they are not that complicated... The tropes are well known; the big city person who must go back to the small town that they are from, and they fall in love with their ex that is already there or a new flawless person...and the whole town is conspiring to get them together. There is a Christmas problem that needs to be solved...and then low and behold the big city person becomes a small city person and the two love interests kiss once at the end.”
Adding to the virtuosity that is happening on stage, Outside Joke also makes use of a musician who punctuates and helps move along the show, but improvising music or sounds that will help punch up what is happening on stage. Sarah Michaelson is the supplier of music for this production. Testar explains Michael’s role in the show, “She is providing a soundtrack. Like a Hallmark movie there is always music behind it that informs the scene...and it’s the same thing [for Michaelson] except she is doing it on the fly. She has had tons of practice. She has worked in the improv world a long time, and she can almost lead us. So, if we think it is a serious scene, and she puts in a bouncy little tune, it tells us ‘Oh this needs to be more lighthearted.”
Lighthearted, fun, and completely original every single time, Outside Joke's A Christmas Miracle: An Improvised Holiday Rom Com is just what everyone needs from Santa. This show will provide some hilarity during the holidays, while leaving audiences with a sense of amazement and wonder at what they have just witnessed on stage.
Outside Joke’s A Christmas Miracle: An Improvised Holiday Rom Com runs from December 10th to the 22. For more details click here.
Audience Advisory: this theatrical run of improvised performances is very likely to contain strong language and adult storylines and is intended for mature audiences.
