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An element that runs common through many of the shows on display at this year’s Winnipeg Fringe Festival is that they pick their titles before they had a completed script – or, indeed, an idea.
This was the case for Instant Modern Classic, showing at the Prairie Theatre Exchange. “We knew we wanted to do a theatrical improv show this year,” says performer and director Caity Curtis, “so we looked to words and themes that are known in the theatre already, and this idea of a play being a modern classic was compelling to us.”
The compelling nature of Instant Modern Classic lies in the simple notion that unlike stereotypical improv comedy, theatrical improv aims to use the whole spectrum of emotions to share a story and to entertain. Performer Stephen Sim notes that while the results still can be comedic, “We can be touching. We can maybe improvise and maybe make you feel something. And maybe you’ll be scared. Maybe you’ll cry. Maybe you’ll also laugh.”
Sim, who also organizes the Winnipeg Improv Festival, observes that theatrical improv allows for a longer, slower burn with the characters that the performers create. “A theatrical improv show has less of a fast-paced editing style, which is a little bit more cinematic and using some cinematic tools and using the theatrical tools of live theatre, it does allow us to slow down and get right into these characters and get right into that story.”
Despite the difference in mood that can occur in theatrical improv, Curtis points out that the performers use largely the same skill sets. “Whether we break tension with a laugh or we break tension with a jump scare or we break the tension with a dramatic reveal, that’s the skill that we practice,” she says, “but bringing the audience along with a story is really similar skills, no matter what genre of storytelling we’re doing.”
Curtis and Sim both feel a great amount of gratitude for the response that Instant Modern Classic has received from audiences, but Sim has also been looking at another group in the cloud. “This new generation of improvisors who a couple years in and getting an opportunity to see a different way that improv can be performed and having their eyes open even wider. And that’s exciting!”
“It’s exciting to do new and to kind of create a larger boundary form,” Curtis adds.
Audiences can see improv’s boundaries expanding at venue #16 at the Prairie Theatre Exchange during the run of the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. For tickets and more information, festivalgoers are invited to visit their website.