Comedy / It’s heresy to some, but for me, growing up as a teen in Minnesota, improv began with–and owes its dues to–Dudley Riggs and the Brave New Workshop on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. Oh sure, some will cite Viola Spolin and Del Close and the whole Chicago thing, some will talk about that amazing Brit Keith Johnstone and the Improv explosion, but to me, that’s just the Romans basking in the light of the Greeks.

At Brave New World in the Uptown district, a small group of young actors would perform both sketch comedy and spur of the moment, seemingly offhand, absolutely pee-your-pants-funny improv based on audience suggestions. Trivia note: the soon-to-be Sen. Al Franken got his start there, as did his fellow SNL alum Tom Davis.

In Honolulu, we have had our own wellsprings of the improvisational art, but for the most part these have been seasonal springs, arising wherever they could. These days, the city is overflowing with troupes and talent, but it wasn’t always so.

The mid-1990s, Ray Bumatai fronted a collective called 808 Improv, which often found its venue at a sports bar on Alakea Street. In the later ’80s and early ’90s, Rod Martin formed the Honolulu Improvisational Theatre Company–which finagled space both at Mid-Pacific Institute and Manoa Valley Theatre. In the early ’90s, Honolulu City Laughs, founded by the multi-talented Terri Madden, worked hard to make a financial go of so-called ComedySportz improv (think Whose Line Is It Anyway?) and performed anywhere it could, even in Ward Centers’ Monterey Bay Canners (before it became Brew Moon and died). All of these groups are now defunct.

It’s true that finding performance space is tough and finding a home of your own even tougher, but that doesn’t mean that improv needs a home space to thrive. In fact, the longest surviving troupe in town, Loose Screws, has made it to sweet 16 but has yet to nail down a performance venue of its own. Another home-grown troupe, Garrick Paikai’s On The Spot, uses The ARTS at Marks Garage as its base and Bobby Duncan’s Comedy Crusaders has found its home at the Living Room at the Wharf. Early last September, however, the itinerant art form of Honolulu improv took a big step forward when it crossed the threshold of the Laughtrack Theater Company in downtown Honolulu. Co-founders Shannon Winpenny and Kim Potter took the foundling drama and gave it a permanent place to stay–or as permanent as theater can be in this town, anyway. And as is typical with local theater, this is a gig that doesn’t put change into actors’ pockets.

“I look at my day job and that’s my income,” says Kehau Rezentes, one of the talented new breed of improv performers in town. “I don’t ever get paid and I’m okay with that,” she says. “I’d rather just perform. That’s what I want to do.”

By day, the 34-year-old Rezentes works as a unit secretary for Queen’s, but she devotes her evenings to In Your Face Improv troupe rehearsals and is a regular performer with them and others at Laughtrack. Rezentes got her start in performance about four years ago doing sketch comedy with the K-5 Comedy Block. Her first taste of improv came with Duncan’s Comedy Crusaders which, at the time, was housed at Panama Hattie’s in ‘Aiea.

She went to a show with a friend and said, “Yeah, I can do that. I do that at work every day. I did that at school and got awards: campus clown!” After being pulled onto the improv stage, Rezentes found the experience addictive–as have many others.

“I compare it to a gambling rush,” says Stu Hirayama, a local actor currently rehearsing the summer remount of Lee Cataluna’s Da Mayah for Kumu Kahua. The 37-year-old Hirayama’s day job is at Romano’s Macaroni Grill, but he’s become hooked on improv. He and his fellow graduates of Winpenny’s improv classes just finished their final performance as the troupe Hot Property, but he’s found another sideline for himself as the offstage maestro for Laughtrack’s Musical Montage segment. While the others are onstage performing, Hirayama is rapidly scanning Napster and YouTube for music that comments upon the scene and spurs the actors into something new.

“I think what’s fun about it is the unpredictability of it,” Hirayama says. “It’s a good creative outlet.”

Rezentes recently compiled a listing of local improv teams and performers and the number of entries is impressive. New troupes around town include Chocolate Squirrel, Faceless, Casual Threat, On Deck, Lion & Lamb, and Aftermath as well as old-timers like Loose Screws, On The Spot, In Your Face Improv and Comedy Crusaders.

However, the improv scene is notoriously incestuous, and one actor may be a member of several different troupes at the same time. Performer Chris Riel, for instance, is currently listed in seven different ensembles. Still, there are now perhaps as many as 40 experienced improv actors in Honolulu by Rezentes’ count.

And at this moment in Honolulu’s history, improv classes also abound. Winpenny’s “Fundamentals of Improv” offers three levels of instruction, culminating with her students performing as the lead act at Laughtrack’s shows. In addition to Winpenny’s classes, both Paikai and Duncan offer their own courses for their improv forms.

The end result is a plethora of improv performers and troupes like never before. And while that may have Honolulu laughing, it’s not always all about the comedy.

“Improv is not to make people laugh,” Rezentes says. “It’s to tell a story. We’re storytellers without scripted words.”

Found on YouTube

“The Initiative” performs a special game in which two scenes are done simultaneously under one general topic! Can they do it or will chaos ensue? Starring Michael Burk, Scott Hanada, Alissa Joy Lee, Larissa Nielsen, Renato Ordonez, and Kehau Rezentes

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