By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

You can never quite know what will happen at Improvaganza. And that’s how it’s supposed to be.

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The improv talent from here, there, and everywhere arriving for the 2023 edition of Rapid Fire Theatre’s annual international 10-day comedy festival are specialists in the rarefied art of the spontaneous. And starting Wednesday RFT’s well-connected global festivities are happening, for the first time, in their spiffy new home at the Exchange in Strathcona, specially designed for improv.

As artistic director Matt Schuurman puts it, “we used to have to find spaces for performances, for the technical (arrangements), rehearsals, workshops, hospitality. And now we have a home!” With a bar — indispensable for Improvaganza’s particular kind of perms and combs talent brokering.

The thing about Improvaganza is that Rapid Fire invites the world. And the world comes.

Flashback from Oslo’s Det Andre Teatret, at Improvaganza 2023.

Returning faves, for example, include a Norwegian improv company, Det Andre Teatret from Oslo, a name that translates as “the other theatre.” Says Schuurman, “we’ve had them before, and we’ve been there, too…. In fact, a lot of the inspirations for our space came from their theatre.”

For their June 21 and 23 shows, Cathrine Frost and Kristine Græmdsen have brought with them improv musician Tale Vang Ellefsen, a DJ/violinist who edits sound “to move the improvised story forward and backward in time,” as Schuurman explains.

Dark Side of the Room is an all-Black collective from Atlanta. As you’ll see at their June 22 show, they gather from the audience a suggestion of a classic movie, TV show, place, piece of literature. And their inspiration is to improvise scenes from the perspective of the Black characters, who are, as per the white-centric entertainment universe,  the supporting and bit players. “So funny and subversive,” as Schuurman says. He remembers one performance where the cue was the Keanu Reeves movie Speed. Dark Side of the Room played the Black road crew putting up the signs.

Newcomers to Improvaganza include Derek Flores, originally from Calgary’s Loose Moose Theatre crowd, now living in New Zealand. He’s bringing a couple of shows. One is The Unicorn, starring “a boozy lounge character,” says Schuurman of the storyteller, whose narratives are part tall tales and part inadvertent emotional revelations.

Derek Flores in El Jaguar Fiesta City Bus. Photo supplied

The El Jaguar Fiesta City Bus Tour is a Flores inspiration, too. “I saw it in Vancouver,” says Schuurman. “And it was hilarious!” The venue is a school bus. And El Jaguar, a character in full lucha libre Mexican wrestling regalia, takes you on a tour of “the city you thought you knew.”

“Some of it is factual; he does research,” Schuurman says of the tour guide’s spiel. “A lot of it is bs, things he notices in passing….”

In Murder, She Improvised, June 17, Dad’s Garage from Atlanta undertakes a genre that, as Schuurman points out, is a particular challenge for improvisers. “Secrets and mysteries are really hard,” he says. Not that Julian Faid, who plays the detective, will be daunted by “challenging,” since he’s the co-star (with Kory Mathewson) of RFT’s improvised TED Talks.

There’s a show for kids (Kidding Around). There’s a Vancouver troupe, Tightrope Impro Theatre, newly formed from veteran West Coast performers, with their improvised version of F*ck Marry Kill. The choices built into the title are for the audience to determine.

Mark Meer, Improvised Dungeons & Dragons. Photo supplied

There are “ensemble” shows, including Rapid Fire’s perennial hit Improvised Dungeons and Dragons over which improv virtuoso Mark Meer presides. There’s even a musical comedy sketch show. It’s from the buzzy Toronto-based Tita Collective, all of whom have Filipino ancestry. “So delightful and positive,” says Shuurman of the June 17 show, at Improvaganza en route to the Toronto Fringe. “Sketch comedy with a lot of songs.”

And there’s champion freestyle rapper MC RedCloud (creator of the touring musical hit Bear Grease). After each championship round of Theatresports (Friday, plus June 23 and 24), the performers throw to him to improvise a rap commentary of what the audience has just seen. Let the rapper rap the reviews; he knows all about rhyming.

PREVIEW

Improvaganza 2023

Theatre: Rapid Fire Theatre

Where: Rapid Fire Exchange Theatre, 10437 83 Ave.

Running: June 14 to 24

Tickets and full schedule: rapidfiretheatre.com