The Richmond Comedy Coalition turns The Shop into a comedy playground during THE LAB, the all new improv & sketch open mic show. Anything goes, and all are welcome to sign up with their comedy act. Emphasis is on experimenting with new material and formats.

Don’t have an act, but want to get on stage? That’s ok, we’ll close out the show with an improv jam hosted by the RCC. Anyone in the audience, regardless of experience, can volunteer to play short improv games alongside Richmond improvisers.

The best part? It’s all free. Boom.

Slots are filled on a first-come first-served basis. DEADLINE TO SIGN-UP IS 8PM ON FEBRUARY 29TH. To sign up, email thelab@rvacomedy.com, and be sure to include the following information:

- Group or act name
- Names of performers in the group
- How long your set is (max 10-15 minutes, shorter is ok!)
- Description of your set (if improv, what format? If sketch, a brief summary)

Come out and be part of the evolution of comedy in RVA!

The Richmond Comedy Coalition’s all-improvised monthly show series, Richmond Famous, features live and totally unscripted comedy, created on the spot, inspired by the true stories of some of RVA’s most interesting people.

The improvisers will be hearing their guests’ stories for the first time onstage. What unfolds afterwards is as much a mystery to them as it is to you, creating a show so funny you’d swear it was scripted (but you know it’s not).

ABOUT THE RVA BEARD LEAGUE:

The Follicles of the James ‘Stache & Beard League, better known as the RVA Beard League, is a social group that brings Richmond beardos and their supporters (fuzzy or not) together over beers. We support and encourage the growth of facial hair and are here to help build a sense of community in Richmond and beyond. We also build on that camaraderie by meeting up with other beard groups in competitive bearding charity events locally, regionally, and throughout the U.S. We also have a sister group, the The Bearded Beauties of the River City, so our lady friends and other crafty gals can join in the fun.

League membership’s free and open to all bipedal mammals. Anyone moustachioed, bearded, goateed, or (in)voluntarily clean-shaven is welcome.

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Chad Roberts
El Capitan & Founder of the RVA Beard League
Likes his beer, chocolate, and humor the same way: the darker and more bitter, the better.

Accolades:
3rd in Freestyle @ NYC Beard and Moustache Competition
1st in Freestyle @ New Jersey Beard & ‘Stache Competition

Zach Pettrey
League Master of ‘Stache and Destruction
Bartender at Station 2, with a future bearding champion due in March.

Accolades:
Best Pho-King Beard @ 2011 Mekong Winter Sol-Stache
Best In Show @ New Jersey Beard & ‘Stache Competition

Simon Leake
League Gentleman & Scholar
Known on Mr. Spielberg’s movie set simply as “Moustache.”

Accolades:
1st in Handlebar moustache @ 2011 Mekong Winter Sol-Stache
2nd in Natural Moustache @ New Jersey Beard & ‘Stache Competition

Matt and Steve are friends and improvisers. These are friendly chats they have about improv.

“the audience gets that ‘A-ha’ moment”

Steve: I think Theme is vital to making a cohesive show as opposed to a string of funny scenes. The Second City reviews I’ve seen seem to struggle with theme which I think is odd because its scripted you’d think it’d be harder in improv
Matt: I think an improv audience is a little more willing to give you a connection. Their perception of the show is a little more supple because it’s happening right then. There a bit more of a barrier in a sketch show.
Steve: Sure. When or how do you go about establishing a theme?
Matt: I think it’s possible to do it right up front in the show. Even in the opening, something like the invocation in a Harold does a really good job of establishing a theme.
Steve: My CIC group is currently doing a group discussion and we’ve been working really hard on theme. Sometimes at the expense of playfulness, which I think can be a trap.
Matt: It’s a fine line. It is easy to look too hard at the show for thematic connections and forget to make the fun moves.
Steve: I generally like it when you a vague idea of a theme in a show and half way through you start call backs. You start to make the connections and then the audience gets that “A-ha” moment.
Matt: I think the later half of the show is a good place to start tying it together because you can start to establish something up top but you really don’t know what the show is yet.
Steve: I think you use the other part of your brain when establishing theme so it can be difficult to shift gears Like it’s hard go from “Gender Roles” to scene ideas that aren’t similar trying to attack it from different angles.

Bring your iPod to this month’s show because the RCC is cranking the comedy to 11. RVA’s best longform improvisers want to put your tunes on shuffle to inspire all their scenes and characters. Your slow jams, party anthems, and guilty pleasures guide the action onstage for a show so funny you’d swear it was scripted (but you know better). Featuring opening sets from RCC improv houseteams, KARATE PRACTICE and MIDDLE MANAGEMENT. Come out and support the RCC before they all head to the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival!

The Amoeba Project is a structured improv jam designed to give our awesome students a chance to get more stage time. Graduates of our Intermediate level are eligible to put their name in a virtual hat. The first folks to sign up are formed into a one-time team, get a coach, get a form, and play in an RCC show. We may even throw some RCC regulars mixed with the cast.

The Amoeba Project changes every time it happens.

The Richmond Comedy Coalition’s all-improvised monthly show series, Richmond Famous, features live and totally unscripted comedy, created on the spot, inspired by the true stories of some of RVA’s most interesting people.

The improvisers will be hearing their guests’ stories for the first time onstage. What unfolds afterwards is as much a mystery to them as it is to you, creating a show so funny you’d swear it was scripted (but you know it’s not).

ABOUT OUR GUESTS:

John & Sherry Petersik met working together in New York City but quickly ditched the urban jungle for the slower pace, sweeter tea, and cheaper real estate of Richmond, Virginia. They soon found themselves purchasing a fixer upper in Bon Air, getting married in the backyard, and starting a blog about their DIY home renovations. That blog, Young House Love, has since become both of their full time jobs and has earned them international recognition, including features on HGTV, CNN, and The Nate Berkus Show. They’re now transforming their second home, raising their one-year-old daughter Clara, and keeping their chihuahua Hamburger out of trouble – all while writing their first book, which is set for release this fall.

www.younghouselove.com
 

The Richmond Comedy Coalition turns The Shop into a comedy playground during THE LAB, the all new improv & sketch open mic show. Anything goes, and all are welcome to sign up with their comedy act. Emphasis is on experimenting with new material and formats.

Don’t have an act, but want to get on stage? That’s ok, we’ll close out the show with an improv jam hosted by the RCC. Anyone in the audience, regardless of experience, can volunteer to play short improv games alongside Richmond improvisers.

The best part? It’s all free. Boom.

Slots are filled on a first-come first-served basis. DEADLINE TO SIGN-UP IS 8PM ON JANUARY 18TH. To sign up, email thelab@rvacomedy.com, and be sure to include the following information:

- Group or act name
- Names of performers in the group
- How long your set is (max 10-15 minutes, shorter is ok!)
- Description of your set (if improv, what format? If sketch, a brief summary)

Come out and be part of the evolution of comedy in RVA!

You should check out this improv blog, “Talking Improv.” Chuck recently wrote a little something about the workshop Zach taught at the Downtown Raleigh Improv Fest.

The RCC goes digital to bring you their unique brand of longform improv comedy. Typically, your suggestions fuel the performers’ scenes, but his time, they’re using a lucky audience member’s Facebook page as the inspiration for the action. Their friends, their pictures, their status updates…it’s all fair game for the RCC to turn into a hilarious world of situations and characters. You’re totally gonna “like” it!

Featuring opening sets from:

THE AMOEBA PROJECT: features an ever-changing cast consisting of graduates of the RCC’s intermediate level of improv classes and may even have some RCC regulars thrown into the mix. You’ll never know what form the Amoeba will take unless you see it for yourself.

and BROKEN MONOCLE IMPROV: Stand up and Improv veterans Jim F’n Zarling, Eve Privman and Johnny Mac build a unique improv set ripped from today’s headlines.

If you’re reading this post, both you and I made it to the other side of 2011 alive. I must admit this year in RVA was one for the books, for better or worse. Some of Richmond’s most beloved restaurants closed up shop, like Cafe Gutenberg, Double T’s, and Nate’s Taco Truck Stop (none of which sited the lower-class’s unrefined taste as the reason for their demise.) But good things happened too! Like Tumblr making a home in town, and that little Lincoln film-thing using RVA as it’s playground, and a related beard renaissance!

2011 was kind to us at the Richmond Comedy Coalition. Looking back I can see that the past year held a lot of milestones, firsts, and bests for the RCC. So, just for you, and because I always get reminiscey when I’m hungover, I present you with our Top 10 Awesome moments of 2011….

THE CHRIS GETHARD SHOW INVADES RVA

In January, UCB performer and professional poor-decision-maker, Chris Gethard, embarked on a Kickstarter-funded cross-country road trip from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in NY to the UCB Theatre in Los Angeles. The RCC donated enough to make Richmond a stop on his tour, and for one night only Gallery5 witnessed the insanity of Gethard’s live show. Highlights included an improv jam with the cast of TCGS and the RCC, Shannon O’Neill as an inmate with a fondness for drawing unsettling portraits, and- oh yeah- a video of Chris and friends touring GWAR’s slave pit, followed by him inviting the audience to come onstage and cover him in bloody marys while he wore one of GWAR’s thongs. Y’know…the usual.

RICHMOND COMEDY COALITION AUDITIONS

A major milestone for us was reaching the point where we were ready to take on new performers. We were up to two monthly shows, giving us the opportunity to put more people on stage. I have to admit I was nervous putting out a call to action; the same way I always got nervous as a kid right before my birthday parties. (the moment of truth is always just waiting for those first few people to show up.) To my surprise we got an unbelievable response- over 40 people showed up to try out! Most of which I had never met or even seen before, and these B’s were FUNNY. I wondered if there was some hidden comedy underbelly of RVA that these people had all crawled out of just for us. We took on about a dozen new performers when all was said and done, some filling out our already-established Mainstage Ensemble, while the rest began their training with our own Matt Newman to become our first fully-audition-cast Harold team, now known as KARATE PRACTICE.

RCC HEADQUARTERS AND TRAINING CENTER OPENS IN CARYTOWN

Our growing pains were panging in 2k11. I could tell we were wearing out our options for places to practice and teach on someone else’s schedule. Our search was trying, but finally we lucked into our very own space to serve as our training center, conveniently nestled on the corner of Cary and Crenshaw right above Babycakes. Since then we’ve been able to expand our offering of classes and workshops. Lovingly nicknamed The Dojo by Karate Practice (coincidentally, how they got their name is a funny story, you should ask them sometime) we now had a space where we could teach, experiment, brainstorm, and try out weird ideas whenever we wanted on our own time. Late at night, if you look reeeeeal close, you’ll see me sitting in the window of the training center with all the lights off, singing “Somewhere Out There,” while gazing off at the sky.

2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW & THE DEBUT OF KARATE PRACTICE

June of 2011 was punctuated with what still ranks as one of my favorite shows to date, 2 FUNNY 2 FAIL, which celebrated 2 full years as the RCC. Not only did we debut the fruit of our loins, our new house team Karate Practice at the show, but the RCC Mainstage cast chose to put our fate in the audiences’ hands by letting them choose what format we would perform. The Craigslist Show juuuust barely edged out In Your Facebook and Laughtrack as the crowd’s top pick, and all 100-and-some rowdy sweaty fans laughed along with us as we perused the minefield of Richmond Craigslist on the big screen, making up the scenes that followed based on the filth-laden posts we saw.

RCC VOTED BEST LOCAL COMEDY GROUP

This confirms that there is a definite correlation between people who like really awesome things, and people who actively vote in Style Weekly’s Reader Poll.

THE RCC ENTERS THE 48 HOUR FILM PROJECT

This was the first year that the RCC entered as an official team for the Richmond 48 Hour Film Project. We took away honorable mention for both musical score and acting. Not bad for our first shot, but next year I’m aiming high: “Best film in the universe ever” award, you will be ours!

THE AMOEBA PROJECT DEBUTS

Our improv classes and workshops really hit a good stride this past year, and now that we had students who had several levels of classes under their comedy-belts (which look like regular belts, but squirt water when you ask people to smell them, I guess?) the natural progression of things dictated that they actually, y’know, do their thang onstage. So the Amoeba project was born, a slot rotated into our monthly mainstage shows where we invite our advanced-level students to perform together as a team. Our first run of this was super successful, and I’m excited to see what combinations of performers and styles incubate out of it in the future.

THE DOWNTOWN RALEIGH IMPROV FESTIVAL

I love to travel and I love to do improv. Improv festivals meet both of these pre-reqs for me, which means if they were a person I would join in a polyamorous marriage with all of the festivals I’ve been to. As a cohesive unit, the DRIF was the first time the RCC was represented outside of RVA. We had a great time taking in shows at Comedyworx from townie-teams and traveling improvisors alike, we performed our Richmond Famous format with guest monologist & festival co-orginizer Chuck Givens, and our own Zach Arnold had the pleasure of hosting a workshop for festival participants. Unrelated, we are currently banned from all Clarion hotels.

THE LAST RICHMONDER WITHOUT POWER SHOW

In September, Richmond.com hosted a lottery-style contest for the hundreds (thousands? Bajillions?) of citizens still without power in the wake of hurricane Irene. Of the laundry list of prizes winner Padgette Evelyn received, we’re pretty sure her favorite prize was our presumptuous and invasive offering of comedy. Boombox in tow, we traveled to scenic New Kent, VA to perform for her and her close friends in their half-finished basement, and GET OUR PICTURE TAKEN WITH A DEAD DEER! Don’t ever say that the RCC isn’t a benevolent organization.

WORKSHOPS WITH RICHMOND SYMPHONY’S YOUTH ORCHESTRA

You’d be surprised how many tenets of improv translate to other disciplines. In October, we got the chance to teach a workshop for some quartets of the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra on how improvisation can improve their ability to listen and react on a deeper level. Getting to work with different groups of people like this is definitely one of the neatest parts of what we do.