rachelblewis
05-11-2007, 05:07 PM
10 Years of Improv Cooperation at The Playground<!-- #EndEditable -->
<!-- #BeginEditable "byline" -->BY Jenn Q. Goddu<!-- #EndEditable -->
<!-- #BeginEditable "story" -->Many improvisers in Chicago share the same story. They are happily improvising away either in an established training program or team setting when the powers that be deem it necessary to break things up. There’s complaining and commiserating, typically from a bar stool, and sometimes (particularly if booze is involved) grandiose plans to keep the comedy alive.
It’s safe to say few of those big ‘we’ll show ’em’ dreams ever get realized. However, Doug Diefenbach’s big idea proved different. When, 10 years ago, his ImprovOlympic team was disbanded, he decided to spearhead the creation of the city’s first-ever comedy co-operative.
“It occurred to me there are plenty of teams out there that get broken up, and want to play, and who can’t do it at the few venues that are available, so we should band together,” Diefenbach said.
He wrote up a proposal to join forces and circulated it among other improvisers. After a few meetings in his living room, The Playground Theater was born. And from the start, it was different from other improv venues.
“We tried to invent a place that would be self-governing where everyone who was a player was also an owner of the organization and had an equal say in how it was run and the decisions that were made,” said Diefenbach.
This coming week the city’s only non-profit improv theatre will celebrate its 10th anniversary with performances May 14-20 from current member ensembles and alums at its 3209 N. Halsted home.
Since the start, The Playground has staged its performances on the shoulders of its volunteers. The Playground’s 140 affiliated actors get stage time, but in return are responsible for cleaning, working the box office, hosting shows and marketing.
Overall, The Playground model works best for those who not only want the opportunity to perform, but also revel in the sense of community that comes from collaborating on the theatre’s overall success, Diefenbach said.
“At one point I thought of it as the dawn of improv civilization. There were always these scattered bands of people eking out an existence, hunting and gathering stage time where they could. The Playground sort of put down roots for them and said, ‘OK, come and be here and band together.’ We didn’t kill any mammoths or anything though.”
Diefenbach says the cooperative approach is a natural progression. “On stage, improvisers are making something out of nothing all the time, and there’s sort of an innate joy in that, and this was just kind of an extension of that. We were making an organization out of nothing as well.”
Not that it was always easy. An early challenge was that The Playground’s performers were “seen for a while as the castoffs of other theatres,” Diefenbach conceded. Additionally, the theatre had the challenge of building an audience base beyond the friends who might come see comedy performed in the back of some bar or restaurant.
“Marketing was an issue and getting known was an issue.”
Even when the Playground moved into its first permanent home on Lincoln Avenue in 1999, there might be nights when ensemble members outnumbered audiences. The show would go on regardless, as The Playground’s members were determined to be disciplined.
“If we say we’re going to put up a show, we put up a show,” said Diefenbach.
Nowadays, audiences are less of a problem. Especially since the theatre moved into its new digs at 3209 N. Halsted, where walk-in foot traffic has climbed dramatically.
“The part that always kills me, though, is that when I go to the show I’ve got to walk by the Briar Street and see the 600 people there to see Blue Man every single night,” said John Eiberger, an ensemble member at the theatre for the past nine years.
The Playground’s audience is a little different than the busloads of tourists stopping a block away. Diefenbach described the core crowd as those “who are sophisticated enough in the art form to be attracted to a little more experimentation and diversity than you might be at some other places. All of our ensembles decide their own approach to it and derive their creative energy from that.”
Having a permanent home also allowed The Playground to diversify its offerings. Now it could hold auditions and rehearsals in a home space and, at the Halsted space, rent the space out to stabilize finances.
There are nine member ensembles, but the Halsted venue is also attractive to veteran or not yet established comedy groups from around the city, across the country and even international locales, who take the stage as guest ensembles when they want to experiment, Diefenbach said.
Yet the ability to “take a chance and have it fail” guest artist program doesn’t always work well.
“The groups that take up us on our offer the correct way do work that they might be afraid to do on another stage,” Eiberger said.
Then there are those, no matter how diligently the guests are screened, that don’t take it seriously and basically “just come in and dump on our stage.”
Nevertheless, The Playground turns a cheek, knowing it’s upholding its mission of allowing improvisers to do their own thing. It is a perspective particularly attractive to new improvisers.
“If you’re doing this for the first time, The Playground is a great place to make mistakes because it’s a very forgiving theatre,” said five-year ensemble member Steve Gadlin. “The Playground gives you this opportunity to be active with your comedy career and put your future in your own hands and stretch your creative muscles.”
In addition to the guest slots, The Playground offers up stage time to new people placed on coached teams after auditioning for the Incubator program.
“I really think that the Playground is that place to find your personal comedic voice without excessive external pressure,” Eiberger said. “It’s the place to find your voice and then leave us and go somewhere else with it and go to town with it.”
No, The Playground doesn’t yet have a lot of big names to point to as success stories. Diefenbach lists “30 Rock”’s Jack MacBrayer (usher Kenneth) and “SNL”’s Jason Sedakis (also on “30 Rock” and “The Office”) as alum, but concedes there’s no Mike Myers yet.
Current Playground president Matt Barbera is trying to change that. An improviser who didn’t get cast the first time he auditioned for the incubator, Barbera first performed at the theatre in 2001. Three years later he was Playground’s president.
He’s been working recently to help Playground members, alum and guest artists get greater exposure. The theatre has put on sketch comedy showcases for HBO and sent ensembles to perform at Aspen and Montreal Comedy festivals.
While competing with two of the country’s most dominant improv comedy houses, The Playground has to work to make its own mark, Barbera said. “I think ultimately where we’re doing that is by creating so many opportunities for so many different people.”
Barbera’s aim is to build on contacts with casting and talent people, getting the theatre’s players in front of the career-makers. “Ultimately you’ve got to make people famous as far as building a reputation for a theatre.”
But this doesn’t mean Barbera is abandoning the theatre’s ‘for the improviser, by the improviser’ mantra. “I want people to have the best experience here before any of that [fame] happens and give them the opportunities to create here and grow as performers, and if all it means is growing here and then moving on somewhere else, that’s OK too… Our future is what our past is in that we are hopefully going to be a tremendous resource for the improv and comedy community in Chicago.”
One of the theatre’s long-running successes, Don’t Spit the Water (DSW), is a co-production that has played now for the past two and a half years.
DSW producer and performer Gadlin remembers his Playground ensemble’s plans to put up a sketch comedy show. When they didn’t come up with anything, they tried unsuccessfully to get out of the contract. That didn’t work and they had to come up with something else. Quickly.
Gadlin said the last-minute filling of a coveted performance time slot might not have found success elsewhere. But at The Playground, he said, “You’re really given the benefit of the doubt in terms of what you can throw together, and no one’s really second-guessing anything. For an upstart show, its one of the best places that you can go because you’re not paying $1,000 for rent. Granted, you have to do a lot of your own work, and wrangle up your own tech, and you don’t have all of the amenities of a more professional or established space, but for us that kind of worked to our advantage.”
However, even as loyal audience members can now expect to see DSW on Saturdays at 10:30 p.m., there is no regular night at The Playground.
“Stylistically we tend to run the gamut from monologue driven things to character driven stuff to just whole ensemble things that are pretty interesting and different,” Barbera said. “I don’t think there’s one specific thing that pigeonholes what a Playground performance is—other than entertaining.”
Eiberger agrees. “There is no average night at The Playground. I guarantee that you’re going to see an awful show and guarantee you’re going to see an awesome show and everything in between. Our open door is our biggest strength and our biggest weakness.”
However, Eiberger would hate to see that door closed. The Playground, he says, is “the best place to find out who you are as a comedian because of the freedom to be free.”
The Playground Theater, 3209 N. Halsted, Chicago, hosts its 10th anniversary May 14-20. Find out more at www.the-playground.com.
<!-- #EndEditable -->
<!-- #BeginEditable "byline" -->BY Jenn Q. Goddu<!-- #EndEditable -->
<!-- #BeginEditable "story" -->Many improvisers in Chicago share the same story. They are happily improvising away either in an established training program or team setting when the powers that be deem it necessary to break things up. There’s complaining and commiserating, typically from a bar stool, and sometimes (particularly if booze is involved) grandiose plans to keep the comedy alive.
It’s safe to say few of those big ‘we’ll show ’em’ dreams ever get realized. However, Doug Diefenbach’s big idea proved different. When, 10 years ago, his ImprovOlympic team was disbanded, he decided to spearhead the creation of the city’s first-ever comedy co-operative.
“It occurred to me there are plenty of teams out there that get broken up, and want to play, and who can’t do it at the few venues that are available, so we should band together,” Diefenbach said.
He wrote up a proposal to join forces and circulated it among other improvisers. After a few meetings in his living room, The Playground Theater was born. And from the start, it was different from other improv venues.
“We tried to invent a place that would be self-governing where everyone who was a player was also an owner of the organization and had an equal say in how it was run and the decisions that were made,” said Diefenbach.
This coming week the city’s only non-profit improv theatre will celebrate its 10th anniversary with performances May 14-20 from current member ensembles and alums at its 3209 N. Halsted home.
Since the start, The Playground has staged its performances on the shoulders of its volunteers. The Playground’s 140 affiliated actors get stage time, but in return are responsible for cleaning, working the box office, hosting shows and marketing.
Overall, The Playground model works best for those who not only want the opportunity to perform, but also revel in the sense of community that comes from collaborating on the theatre’s overall success, Diefenbach said.
“At one point I thought of it as the dawn of improv civilization. There were always these scattered bands of people eking out an existence, hunting and gathering stage time where they could. The Playground sort of put down roots for them and said, ‘OK, come and be here and band together.’ We didn’t kill any mammoths or anything though.”
Diefenbach says the cooperative approach is a natural progression. “On stage, improvisers are making something out of nothing all the time, and there’s sort of an innate joy in that, and this was just kind of an extension of that. We were making an organization out of nothing as well.”
Not that it was always easy. An early challenge was that The Playground’s performers were “seen for a while as the castoffs of other theatres,” Diefenbach conceded. Additionally, the theatre had the challenge of building an audience base beyond the friends who might come see comedy performed in the back of some bar or restaurant.
“Marketing was an issue and getting known was an issue.”
Even when the Playground moved into its first permanent home on Lincoln Avenue in 1999, there might be nights when ensemble members outnumbered audiences. The show would go on regardless, as The Playground’s members were determined to be disciplined.
“If we say we’re going to put up a show, we put up a show,” said Diefenbach.
Nowadays, audiences are less of a problem. Especially since the theatre moved into its new digs at 3209 N. Halsted, where walk-in foot traffic has climbed dramatically.
“The part that always kills me, though, is that when I go to the show I’ve got to walk by the Briar Street and see the 600 people there to see Blue Man every single night,” said John Eiberger, an ensemble member at the theatre for the past nine years.
The Playground’s audience is a little different than the busloads of tourists stopping a block away. Diefenbach described the core crowd as those “who are sophisticated enough in the art form to be attracted to a little more experimentation and diversity than you might be at some other places. All of our ensembles decide their own approach to it and derive their creative energy from that.”
Having a permanent home also allowed The Playground to diversify its offerings. Now it could hold auditions and rehearsals in a home space and, at the Halsted space, rent the space out to stabilize finances.
There are nine member ensembles, but the Halsted venue is also attractive to veteran or not yet established comedy groups from around the city, across the country and even international locales, who take the stage as guest ensembles when they want to experiment, Diefenbach said.
Yet the ability to “take a chance and have it fail” guest artist program doesn’t always work well.
“The groups that take up us on our offer the correct way do work that they might be afraid to do on another stage,” Eiberger said.
Then there are those, no matter how diligently the guests are screened, that don’t take it seriously and basically “just come in and dump on our stage.”
Nevertheless, The Playground turns a cheek, knowing it’s upholding its mission of allowing improvisers to do their own thing. It is a perspective particularly attractive to new improvisers.
“If you’re doing this for the first time, The Playground is a great place to make mistakes because it’s a very forgiving theatre,” said five-year ensemble member Steve Gadlin. “The Playground gives you this opportunity to be active with your comedy career and put your future in your own hands and stretch your creative muscles.”
In addition to the guest slots, The Playground offers up stage time to new people placed on coached teams after auditioning for the Incubator program.
“I really think that the Playground is that place to find your personal comedic voice without excessive external pressure,” Eiberger said. “It’s the place to find your voice and then leave us and go somewhere else with it and go to town with it.”
No, The Playground doesn’t yet have a lot of big names to point to as success stories. Diefenbach lists “30 Rock”’s Jack MacBrayer (usher Kenneth) and “SNL”’s Jason Sedakis (also on “30 Rock” and “The Office”) as alum, but concedes there’s no Mike Myers yet.
Current Playground president Matt Barbera is trying to change that. An improviser who didn’t get cast the first time he auditioned for the incubator, Barbera first performed at the theatre in 2001. Three years later he was Playground’s president.
He’s been working recently to help Playground members, alum and guest artists get greater exposure. The theatre has put on sketch comedy showcases for HBO and sent ensembles to perform at Aspen and Montreal Comedy festivals.
While competing with two of the country’s most dominant improv comedy houses, The Playground has to work to make its own mark, Barbera said. “I think ultimately where we’re doing that is by creating so many opportunities for so many different people.”
Barbera’s aim is to build on contacts with casting and talent people, getting the theatre’s players in front of the career-makers. “Ultimately you’ve got to make people famous as far as building a reputation for a theatre.”
But this doesn’t mean Barbera is abandoning the theatre’s ‘for the improviser, by the improviser’ mantra. “I want people to have the best experience here before any of that [fame] happens and give them the opportunities to create here and grow as performers, and if all it means is growing here and then moving on somewhere else, that’s OK too… Our future is what our past is in that we are hopefully going to be a tremendous resource for the improv and comedy community in Chicago.”
One of the theatre’s long-running successes, Don’t Spit the Water (DSW), is a co-production that has played now for the past two and a half years.
DSW producer and performer Gadlin remembers his Playground ensemble’s plans to put up a sketch comedy show. When they didn’t come up with anything, they tried unsuccessfully to get out of the contract. That didn’t work and they had to come up with something else. Quickly.
Gadlin said the last-minute filling of a coveted performance time slot might not have found success elsewhere. But at The Playground, he said, “You’re really given the benefit of the doubt in terms of what you can throw together, and no one’s really second-guessing anything. For an upstart show, its one of the best places that you can go because you’re not paying $1,000 for rent. Granted, you have to do a lot of your own work, and wrangle up your own tech, and you don’t have all of the amenities of a more professional or established space, but for us that kind of worked to our advantage.”
However, even as loyal audience members can now expect to see DSW on Saturdays at 10:30 p.m., there is no regular night at The Playground.
“Stylistically we tend to run the gamut from monologue driven things to character driven stuff to just whole ensemble things that are pretty interesting and different,” Barbera said. “I don’t think there’s one specific thing that pigeonholes what a Playground performance is—other than entertaining.”
Eiberger agrees. “There is no average night at The Playground. I guarantee that you’re going to see an awful show and guarantee you’re going to see an awesome show and everything in between. Our open door is our biggest strength and our biggest weakness.”
However, Eiberger would hate to see that door closed. The Playground, he says, is “the best place to find out who you are as a comedian because of the freedom to be free.”
The Playground Theater, 3209 N. Halsted, Chicago, hosts its 10th anniversary May 14-20. Find out more at www.the-playground.com.
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