LOL WITH IT: ComedySportz is expanding!

Performing in Philly for 19 years, ComedySportz is set up like a sporting match, with two teams competing in improv games against each other.

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LOL WITH IT: ComedySportz is expanding!

POSTED: Friday, September 23, 2011, 2:00 PM

Filed Under: Comedy LOL With It

Ryan Carey on who and what's giving Philly the giggles ...

ComedySportz has been performing a live improv competition almost every Saturday for 19 years. If you've never been to check it out, the event is set up like a sporting match — with two teams competing in improv games against each other. A referee governs the action, times the games, calls the fouls and gets suggestions from the fans. A sound man called Mr. Voice gives scoring updates and comments on the action. The home team in blue is the Philadelphia Fighting Amish and the visiting NJ Turnpikes are in red (all part of the same troupe, of course).

Despite the Medieval Times/Harlem Globetrotters vibe, the competition is very real. The points are derived from the a mount of audience laughter in a number of rounds. And points are subtracted when a team fumbles (i.e. someone can't think of a line quickly enough). There are audience vote rounds as those judged by celebrities.

I asked the group's Don Montrey whether the audiences usually gravitate toward the hometown Fighting Amish. "We had a game just last Saturday where there was this group of kids who loved New Jersey and they were very vocal for it. We encourage that, we encourage the audience to support their team because it gets really, really fun."

ComedySportz is expanding their programming, now that they are Amaryllis Theatre Company's sole tenants of The Adrienne's Playground stage. Their new series is called Final Fridays. The last two Fridays of every month will feature a 7:30 p.m. ComedySportz Match. Then at 10:00 p.m., there will be a weekly rotation of two shows: ComedySportz Presents and The Blue Show.

On the second Friday of the month, a different show under the ComedySportz Presents banner will debut. Tonight, their staging The Incomplete Works of Shakespeare, a Bard-style improv show. Next month will feature a puppet slasher called Kill Puppet, Kill. In December, they're going to be doing The Christmas Carol Unscripted, which is an improvised version of the Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.

And the last Friday of each month will feature The Blue Show. This adults-only improv show is meant to be less appropriate — approaching the line and frequently crossing it. "One of the things we have in the main ComedySportz show is the brown bag foul," explains Montrey. "If anyone swears or says something purely for shock value, they get a foul and have to wear a bag over their head for the [remainder of the] game. This rule is not in effect for The Blue Show."

In addition to Final Fridays, the last Sunday of every month will feature ComedySportz For Kids at 11:00 a.m.. "It's a shorter show for our shorter fans," Montrey says. "An hour-long show, abridged for younger children with shorter attention spans — and still fun for parents."

ComedySportz is an international setup, with locations all over the country as well as Berlin and Manchester, U.K. Originating in 1984 in Milwaukee Wis., Philadelphia's group was one of the earliest-formed franchises — starting at the Bourse before moving to the Brick Playhouse on South Street. And now at the Playground at The Adrienne, where they've been for more than ten years.

(ryan.carey@citypaper.net)

(@slackerDIYtoday)

Stop by next week for the first post in Ryan's month-long coverage of Philadelphia's Comedy Month.

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