By WICF Contributing Writer Pam Victor
[“Geeking Out with…” is a series of interviews with well-known, highly experienced improvisers. It’s a chance to talk about stuff that might interest hardcore, improv dorkwads like Pam. The series can be found in full frontal geek out version on My Nephew is a Poodle and in pithier version on the Women in Comedy Festival blog.]
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| Mr. Jonathan Pitts |
Mostly likely, you will not hear the words “Chicago”
and “festival” together without also hearing the name Jonathan Pitts. In 1998, he and Frances Callier (Frangela)
founded the Chicago
Improv Festival, which Jonathan has been spearheading ever since. As the
Executive Director of Chicago Improv Festival Productions, Jonathan also created and
runs the College
Improv Tournament, The Teen Comedy
Fest, and CIF’s
education outreach programs. In addition, Jonathan founded Storybox, which is, as he describes it, “an improvised
one-act production that combines Story Theater, Noh Theatre, and Viewpoints.”
Jonathan also has worked as the guest artist at the Second City Training Company
for over eleven years. Jonathan has performed in innumerable improv and theater
productions, and for three consecutive years he was named by New City magazine as one of “Chicago Theater’s
50 Leading Characters.” You can't deny Jonathan Pitts has got some mad cred for sure.
***
PAM
VICTOR: When did you know you wanted to be an improviser?
JONATHAN PITTS: I was in college when I first started taking improv classes. I then turned it into a class project and put together a
college ensemble for my college to tour local high schools and to perform for
our college. I ended up getting additional credit and a grade for my efforts. I
remember standing on the stage after performing for 45 minutes in front of a
sold out house on our college campus, and realizing, "This is what I want
to do with the rest of my life."
PAM: Ah.
And did you do improv from then on? Or was your path to Chicago more
circuitous?
JONATHAN: I first began with classes at Second City
in Chicago. It was very different back then, as there was no Second City
training center, no Second City ETC, no iO, no Annoyance, no ComedySportz, and
very few places to learn or play. This also meant that there were far less
improvisers around in Chicago too. Back then, if you got into a SC workshop, it
would meet twice a week for 13 weeks. Two hours on Thursday and four hours on
Saturday. It was more of an apprenticeship style of learning.
As
I was drawn more and more to doing improv, I put together groups with friends
and we'd do one-off shows wherever we could. This lead to my getting asked to
perform with Stone Soup [iO’s first ever house team] in Chicago.
We use to play in coffee houses and open mics.
PAM: What
year did you start your studies in Chicago at SC?
JONATHAN: I took my first class at Second City in
early December of 1979. I'm old.
PAM: I'm
old too. That makes two of us.
JONATHAN: I was 20 when I was taking those first
workshops.
PAM: Who
were some memorable teachers from those first years, the people who really
inspired you to devote your life to improv?
JONATHAN: Back then, during the five years that I
consider to be my equal to a bachelor's in improvisation, I got to study with
(alphabetically) Alan Baranowski, Danny Breen, Del Close, Don DePollo, Michael
Gelman, Ed Greenburg, John Michelski, Sheldon Patinkin, Bryne Piven, Jeremy
Pollack, Rob Riley, Paul Sills, and David Shepherd. Not a lot of women were
teaching improv in Chicago then. There was Josephine Forsburg and Joyce Piven,
but I didn't study with them. Charna [Halpern] had gotten started too, but
during that time, I was learning David's 10 Improv Olympic Games from David in
the early iO days.
PAM: Oh
boy! If you're able to alphabetize your teachers from 30 years ago, I can see
how you would be the perfect person to head up the Chicago Festival
Productions!
JONATHAN: Yes, but I can
never remember the names of my current students at the Second City Training Co.
It's one of those age things.
PAM: Ok. We'll
skip ahead a decade or two. What lead to your founding of the Chicago Improv Festival
with Frances Callier?
JONATHAN: I first learned about festivals by working as a
production intern on the International Theatre Festival of Chicago in 1990.
After that I worked as a production assistant for the Bolshoi Ballet's national
tour of America. A few years passed and I got invited by a friend, David Schien, to become the Theater/Performance Art Curator for the Around the Coyote Arts
Festival in Chicago. This lead to my producing and coordinating other theatre-based
festivals. I was also working as a teacher and a director for a children's
festival called Magic City, which was started by the late Maggie Daley and run
by Cheryl Sloane (Joyce Sloane's daughter). Working for Cheryl was one Miss
Frances Callier and we got along as co-workers and friends. One day, while
working on the Bailiwick Repertory's Director Festival, it occurred to me,
"Chicago's a city of festivals, how come there's never been an improv
festival here?" So, the next day, I called Frances and asked to co-produce
the Chicago Improv Festival with me. Turned out she had been wanting to produce
an improv festival for years in Chicago and couldn't get anyone to do so with
her. Thus, like peanut butter and chocolate, we joined forces to create and
produce the first ever CIF, which took place over one week at the old Annoyance
Theater in 1998.
PAM: Was
it hard to get troupes to perform? Or were people just chomping at the bit,
waiting for the opportunity?
JONATHAN: Both. On the one hand, there was a wait
and see attitude from a lot of the local groups, but on the other hand every
act or ensemble from outside of Chicago that we asked to come play said yes.
Back then, it was invite only.
PAM: Who
were some of the stand out troupes from those first years?
JONATHAN: Well, with the out of town groups we did
have to hustle to get them to come to CIF. In the first year, we had some great
sets by Annoyance, Brave New Workshop, Jeff Garlin, The Frayed Knots, Slotnick
Katz & Lehr, and a special Thursday late night set featuring Scott Adsit,
Mick Napier, and Dave Pasquesi.
PAM: A great festival, even then!...CIF allows improvisers a rare and wonderful
opportunity to observe the simultaneous creation of improv comedy, and
obviously do some idea cross-pollination in the process. So thank you for that.
JONATHAN: My love of international theatre goes
back to my time with the International Theatre Festival of Chicago. It's always
been important to me that every year CIF has had international improvisers. In
year one, it was players from Toronto, Montreal and Amsterdam, and last year it
was players from eight other countries. I feel it is so important for us as
improv artists to see and share all the different ways there are to work and
play. Culture affects communication and consciousness, and they in turn affect
improvisational artistic impulses. I've noticed that while the culture of our
countries are different, their training and saying yes and, is the same.
Watching international improvisers play together is like watching an answer to
the tower of Babel.
To
play is universally human. How we play is the lens which reflects were we are
from and what we have experienced.
PAM: You
get to hang out with – and often house! – a lot of international improvisers.
JONATHAN: When its CIF time, I've always got
international improvisers in my apartment, but after their first night (usually
a night or two before the start of CIF), I am usually too busy working on CIF
to spend a lot of time hanging out with them. Last year, the night before CIF
began, there was a very cool and wonderful spontaneous musical improv jam in my
front room as improvisers from France, Mexico, and Turkey were playing together
on different musical instruments. I was the only American in my place and I was
playing my didgeridoo with them.
PAM: Thank
you for being the first person to mention a didgeridoo in this series!
JONATHAN: You're welcome and I hope I'm not the
last. You can only improvise on a didgeridoo, as there's no set things to play
on it.
PAM: That
is particularly apt then.
JONATHAN: One year at CIF, I got to play in a
didgeridoo duo back stage at with Debra Wilson from MADtv. She was really good.
PAM: Ok,
now that's two didgeridoo stories. Nobody can live up to that, Jonathan.
Nobody.
 |
| Jonathan in the CIF offices, sans didgeridoo |
JONATHAN: Boom!
PAM: You
mentioned the similarities. Do you feel the international troupes work from the
same basic "rules"?
JONATHAN: Some of the groups do follow the same
rules as in the USA. Some are more influenced by Keith Johnstone. Some are
influenced by clowning and physical theatre. Some a big mixes of some or all of
these things.
PAM: Yet
it's still fascinating that the artform can be created simultaneously in so
many different countries, but the process and the end product is shockingly
similar.
JONATHAN: Yes, it all comes down to heartfelt
moments and dick jokes.
PAM: Hahah!
That should be etched in the entryway to an improv theater, I think.
As the creator and producer of the College Improv Tournament and the Teen Comedy Festival, what changes are you seeing with young kids coming up in the improv world right now?
As the creator and producer of the College Improv Tournament and the Teen Comedy Festival, what changes are you seeing with young kids coming up in the improv world right now?
JONATHAN: Well, just like they are processing the
world differently because of being online creatures and social media addicts,
their improvisation is different too. I just read an article by an author who
said that the human species is now profoundly different because of how we
process information. If that is true, then what is improvisation except a
shared processing of information experienced simultaneously and responded from
their own intuitive perspectives? Can you tell I was liberal arts major?
PAM: Well,
the didgeridoo thing threw me off into the musical history realm...but yeah. Who
are the college improvisers' influences and what do you think motivates them to
do improv?
JONATHAN: The college
improvisers’ main influences are each other and themselves. Most are college
clubs and they are able to hang out with people who become their best friends
and college family. It's amazing to see how much these college kids learn from
each other. And since very few of them have coaches, a lot of them end up
creating their own version of improv. Much like Mick [Napier], Joe [Bill], and Mark [Sutton] and them did back at Indiana University when they created their
own improv troupe without ever having seen improv - a lot of these college kids are following a similar path. Not
that they are trying to be the Annoyance; but instead be like the Annoyance,
and do their own thing.
Other
groups are studying very hard with teachers in their local big cities (Boston,
New York, etc.,) and they are learning very quickly to take the best of what
they learn and master it.
The
average college group has been playing together for 2 to 4 years, and they
practice once or twice a week and then perform too. Because they are not trying
to be on 4 or 5 teams, like the average improviser does now in Chicago, they
put all they have into their teams and it shows.
PAM: Personally,
I think, as a whole, our population is becoming faster-paced, less deep
artistically and intellectually, and more interested in instant gratification.
There is pressure from the audiences to provide that sort of entertainment, but
also improvisers and theaters with that style are having great success. So the
pressure to conform is coming from both ends. As an old fuddy-duddy, ‘Get-off-my-lawn-you-kids’
yeller, I’m concerned that the slow, theatrical-styled improv will be lost in
the evolution. Are my fears founded, in your opinion? Or do I just need to grab
a walker, a pair of adult diapers and start marketing my troupe as The Golden Girls?
JONATHAN: As things move faster, there will always
be people who will want to experience something slower and fuller. Maybe not in
the same sized audience, but in the same passion.
Besides,
while theaters like UCB have a strong hold on cities like New York and L.A.,
there are other cities like Austin, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Seattle that
have their own scene, their own approach, and their own communities that have a
wide range of playing styles. I sometimes think that each city has an improv
scene that is a reflection of the city itself.
PAM: That's
pretty cool, isn't it? (Jeepers, it makes me just fall in love with improv all
over again. And for some reason, I want to sing a Disney song.)
JONATHAN: Well, sing away
Disney improv girl!
PAM: "It's
a small world after all..." (I am SO SORRY to everyone who will read that
and will be singing that infernal song for the rest of the week.)
You have a theory that there are the three types of improv (not the usual trio of longform, short form and “shlong” form). Can you tell me what they are please?
JONATHAN: Yes, I have a theory that there are three
kinds of approaches to improvisation, and it helps me to consider them in this
fashion far better than the length of time of each improvisation. I know that
Joe Bill has a three-tier take on improvisation too, and I've noticed some
cross over in our conceptual terminology, so there might be something to both
of us coming up with this around the same time.
PAM: Oooh.
I don't think I've heard Joe's three-tier approach theory yet. So I'm thrilled
you are telling me yours. First!
JONATHAN: For me, there's "Improv
Comedy," "Improvisational Theater," and "Theatrical
Improvisation". The aim of the first is to make an audience laugh, the
second is to make an audience think, and the third is to make an audience feel.
PAM: I
love it.
JONATHAN: To me, it doesn't matter the length of
time, if there's costumes, or pre-defined characters, it’s all about the aim
and pursuit of the piece that makes up its foundation. When I play with other
improvisers in guest sets, I always try to find out what they are aiming for so
that I can adjust myself to their approach. Kind of like if I played the
violin, I'd play it differently in bluegrass, classical, jazz, rock or rap.
PAM: How do Improvisational
Theater and Theatrical Improvisation differ?
JONATHAN: To me the difference between Improvisational Theater
and Theatrical Improvisation is the elements that go into it, which of course
affects what comes out of it. Some of the Theatrical Improvisation shows
include The Doubtful Guests, Centralia,
Burn Manhattan, Improsia, my show Storybox,
and any show that uses Viewpoints as a major component. Viewpoints is the new
dividing line in improvisation. You either love it or hate it, there's not much
in-between. Also, some of the work that Jet Eveleth does would fit into this
category too.
PAM: Aside
from improv, what do you really geek out on?
JONATHAN: Chocolate.
 |
| On stage at the Kansas City Improv Festival |
PAM: Ha!
Jonathan, you clearly are an innovator and someone who excels at turning ideas
into realities. What propels you forward? What keeps gas in your tank, if you
know what I mean?
JONATHAN: Pam, thanks for calling me an innovator,
I appreciate that. I love to create. Creating and connecting are my two
blisses. There are so many ways to create, which is why I perform, teach,
direct, and produce. In Canada and Europe, you can call yourself a creator of
theatre and people know what that means. Here in the states, you have to use
all the hyphens. I'm an actor/director/ etc. I'm a creator and I create
improvisational experiences for myself and others to partake in, and I create
them from both sides of the stage.
PAM: I
think I share your blisses. I like chocolate too.
JONATHAN: Whoo-hoo! We're three for three!
PAM: Yay!
Last question: Are there any new ideas percolating in that fertile mind of
yours that you’d like to put your energy into?
JONATHAN: I have considered the possibility of
moving away from Chicago to another city to be part of helping grow an improv
center that utilizes the newer ideas and approaches of the work onstage and
off. I don't know how many new ideas can come into Chicago as things here are
pretty set and defined. As an improv artist, it’s up to me to pursue what draws
me. I love doing Storybox, and I am
proud to see the form grow with me and without me. I also want to visit more
countries to interact with international improvisers. I've also had a friend
who wants me to write an improv book. I also thought it might be cool to get a
doctorate in improvisational studies (even if that sounds like a contradiction
in terms).
PAM: COME
TO WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS!!!!!!!!!! We can bliss out on innovation and create
the new center of the theatrical improv world!
JONATHAN: That would be fun! I've thought about if
I were to move, putting up a notice on Facebook like a free agent in sports to
see who would want me. In my travels over the last two years, I've been asked a
lot by my friends if I'd want to move to their city. I felt that was some of the
best compliments I've ever gotten. I've said, if I move it would be for community,
love, and work. Or at least two of the three.
PAM: We
have lesbian, Democrats and nice people.
JONATHAN: I am not going to define which of those
three correlate to my three.
PAM: You
don't have to…and I promise not to tell anyone you're a lesbian.
***
To enjoy one
of the many fruits of Jonathan Pitts’ labor, you absolutely must check this year’s
Chicago Improv Festival on April 23-29, 2012. In addition to terrific
workshops given by some of the very best in the business, the show roster
includes many highly lauded troupes and performers, such as BASSPROV (Chicago),
Improvised Shakespeare Co. (Chicago),
St. Clair and Morris (L.A.),
Magnet Theatre Tour Co. (New York) and
many, many more.
***
Pam Victor is the founding member of The Ha-Ha’s, and she producesThe Happier Valley Comedy Shows in Northampton, MA. Pam directs, produces and performs in the comic soap opera web series "Silent H, Deadly H". Pam also writes mostly humorous, mostly true essays and reviews of books, movies and tea on her blog,"My Nephew is a Poodle," where you also can read a lengthier, dorkier version of this interview.
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