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FAQ
ARE YOUR IMPROV
SHOWS BLUE?
No. Most of our
shows are improvised, which is to say made up on the spot, using
information from the audience as a jumping-off point. We focus mainly on
story, narrative, technical game-playing, and comedy. ‘Blue’ humor is
easy, and we take our improv too seriously to take the easy way out.
Occasionally, audience members shout out off-color suggestions, but if
we take them, we take it as a challenge to use the suggestion in a
creative manner.
What's up with
the GUM WALL?
Our patrons
standing in line began the Gum Wall soon after we moved in. Some
nameless person began by sticking a penny to the wall with gum. Soon the
wall was covered with coins stuck on with gum. Then someone (a homeless
person, we suspect) stripped off all the coins, leaving only the gum.
Now it is a mess of gum, coins, and various other designs.
We have been requested by our landlords (the Pike Market PDA) to clean
the Gum Wall, and have done so. But the wall fills up again. Please, if
you visit our theatre, keep your gum in the trash and off the wall. Or
at least, outside the theatre. |
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In the summer of
1983, members of Seattle’s three seminal improvisational theatre
companies, None of the Above, Off the Wall Players, and Play It Where It
Lays, began working with a new improvisational format known as
TheatreSports, Improvisational theatre with a competitive edge.
TheatreSportsTM pits two teams of improvisers against each
other in scenes based on audience suggestions. Those scenes are then
scored by a panel of judges.
They also participated in tournaments
with teams from cities all over the world. These games have been a great
opportunity for players of different cities and countries to meet each
other and share ideas and information.
Unexpected Productions,
celebrating 25 years (since 1983), is dedicated to promoting the art and
spirit of improvisation. As a group Unexpected Productions has performed
in: Germany, Austria, Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and all over the
U.S. and Canada.
Our members have appeared
on TV's Almost Live (King), and Kwik Witz (Nationally Syndicated), Radio's
Rewind (KUOW), as well as the Bathhouse Theater, Seattle Children's
Theater, The Village Theater, The Group Theater, The Seattle Rep, ACT,
Annex, Seattle Shakespeare Festival, even Broadway, and Off Broadway.
Guest performers who have
sat in with us at UP include: Adam Arkin (Chicago Hope), Dean Haglund (The
X -Files), Julia Sweeney (SNL, It's Pat), Ryan Stiles (Drew Carey, Whose
Line Is It Anyway?), and Colin Mochrie (Whose Line Is It Anyway?), Brad
Sherwood (The Dating Game), and Ellie Harvie (The Addams Family), just to
name a few.
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HISTORY OF SEATTLE THEATRESPORTS
TheatreSports was developed years earlier by Keith Johnstone in England
and then Calgary, Alberta, Canada, as the formal performance mechanism
for a series of improvisational exercises for London’s Royal Court
theatre. Its aim was to help playwrights overcome writer’s block by
short-circuiting our natural tendency to edit ourselves. While
self-editing is an important tool for getting through life, it can
cripple the creative process. Johnstone’s exercises constantly sought to
trick the mind out of its habitual dulling of the world.’ [Impro, page
32)
When The Seattle Theatresports League
was founded, this innovative Improv format was being performed in a few
cities in Canada, the UK, and Australia. The Seattle League was the
first company in the United States to perform TheatreSportsTM.
For several years, the Seattle group
performed TheatreSports at different venues, including
Swannie’s Comedy Underground, the Pioneer Square Theatre, the Group
Theatre at the Ethnic Cultural Center, and the Intiman Playhouse,
gathering a following along the way.
By 1988, The
Seattle TheatreSports™ League began producing and performing
another show: Cream of Wit. The focus of Cream of Wit has been
the exploration of longer forms of improvisation in a
non-competitive setting. The improvisors in the company wanted
to move into new and different theatrical formats, including
producing and writing full length shows. We wanted to continue
the success of TheatreSports™, but grow creatively in other
forms. The company began teaching improvisation to interested
students, some of whom gained the skills to join the company.
Therefore, the Seattle TheatreSports™ League became officially
known as Unexpected Productions, a non-profit 501(c)(3) theatre
company, which would produce more than TheatreSports™.
Additionally, The company sought to find a permanent home to
produce shows on a seasonal basis. In June 1991, Unexpected
Productions acquired the lease to the Market Theatre in the
historic Pike Place Market, which continues to be our mainstage.
While TheatreSports™ , Wednesdays@8 and Cream of Wit are still
considered to be the foundation of the theatre, Unexpected
Productions has developed, written and produced over 90 shows
since leasing the Market Theatre in 1991. |
History of the Market
Theater
The Market Theatre started
out as a stable for the horses of the farmers who first began the Public
Market, way back in 1907 or so. Then the Economy Building was sectioned
off into warehouses, and then in 1977, after the Public Market had been
saved (once again) from development, the Pike Place Public Development
Authority (our landlords) wanted to encourage an evening trade, so they
leased the space to some cinema entrepreneurs, who built a movie house,
which included old movie theatre seats, a brass front door from a
theatre in New York, and carpet remnants from the original Radio City
Music Hall lobby carpeting (believe it or not!) They were unable to make
the cinema turn a profit, and it closed in about 1989. Unexpected
Productions took over the lease in 1991.
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Joel McHale
Cast Member 1993-1997
Paul Levy with guest Ryan
Stiles 2004 (right)
Jim Westermann with UP cast
Member Ron Hippe (right) in Black Tuesday
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