NEWBERRY — If you’re looking for a little pre-Valentine’s Day hilarity, then The Ritz Theater in downtown Newberry is the place you need to be Friday when the Newberry Improv Troupe rolls out its inaugural show.
The show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10 and will be available at the door.
But this show is about more than just laughter: all proceeds from the show will be used to help restore The Ritz to its former glory.
“The reason we are doing this as a complete improv show is so it can be royalty free, so that way all profits go directly towards the Ritz expenses,” said Drew Zuber, who coordinates the Newberry Community Players Improv group. “I wrote one of the skits in the Improv show that will be performed and I wrote the song at the end of the Improv Troupe show.”
For those who don’t know, improvisational theatre — called improv for short — is the art of thinking on the spot while entertaining an audience and being comfortable enough to go with your first instinct.
It’s all about creating your own scenarios, creating your own situations and dialogue, while making it sound and look funny. “Whose Line Is It, Anyway?” is a short form of improv while the longer form of improv is more relationship/scene driven.
“An Improv show is improvised and it depends on the audience and the emcee what the show will be about. Friday night’s show will roughly be kept PG-13. You never know what’s going to happen in an Improv show,” said Mandy Butler, an improv professional who also directs the improv team Lookin’ Sharp at Newberry College.
This is the first effort for the Newberry Community Players group, but Butler has trained, taught and performed Improv all over the United States. Lookin’ Sharp, in its fourth year at Newberry College, does shows at least twice a year and is experienced in both long and short forms of Improv.
Butler, an assistant professor of theater at Newberry College, got involved with the Newberry Community Players’ improv group through Chris Sheppard, who also works at Newberry College. Sheppard’s wife, Melissa, is on the board of directors at The Ritz.
“The adults wanted something they can do on their own that didn’t involve children and they wanted something that can limit rehearsals, something that didn’t require them to wear costumes and learn lines,” Butler said. “Several of them were interested in Improv from watching the television show Whose Line Is It, Anyway.”
The group got started working on its shtick last fall. All of the participants are 17 or older. The actors rehearsed once a month starting last October but now rehearse at 6:30 p.m. every Friday.
Butler also rehearses with the Newberry Improv troupe each month, teaching the actors about Improv.
The members of the Improv troupe are Drew Zuber, Christina Hatch, Lane Joiner, Jaime Siqueiros, Becky White, Mike Whitlock, Kelly Whitlock, John Allen, Barry McManus, Boyd Bedenbaugh and Butler, the director and host of Friday’s show.
The Ritz Theater is the only place the Newberry Improv troupe will perform.
“We want to keep performances local in the Ritz Theater,” Hatch said.
The Newberry College Theater Improv Team — Angel Smith, De’Quan Funny, Kaitlyn Boulware, Brittany Venzen and Alex Sanchez — will open the show Friday, followed by the Improv troupe.
“We wanted to do it as an adult Improv troupe because the majority of the shows this season were for the youth members and we wanted to do something for the adults,” Hatch said.
Hatch said Butler has been a great help in developing the group of improv performers.
“We would have not been nearly as successful if it wasn’t for the help of Mandy Butler helping us learn improv. If people love the performance, we absolutely want people to see more,” Hatch said. “We will continue the shows based on interest from the community.”
For more information, or if you are interested in joining the group, call 803-597-1636.
Newberry Community Players’ next show is Always Patsy Cline, which they are staging March 18 and March 19 at the Newberry Opera House. Call the Newberry Opera House box office at 803-276-6264 for tickets to that show.