AUGUST 27, SATURDAY

IMPROV

My photographs are not very good and I didn’t take very many of them, but on Saturday evening I went for the second time to the home of Paul Dixon and Jude Stuecker to an evening if Improv, improvisations. Their home in West Asheville is surrounded by a jungle of plant life and is adorned with all kinds of colorful metal figures made by Paul. On the back of their house Paul has built a covered stage facing into the back yard with an above the ground swimming pool to one side. Fifty or sixty people, neighbors and performers bring folding chairs placed to face the stage. Off to the side their two children, Lucy and Sylvia, served Korean Hot Dogs with ten or so Korean condiments made by Paul and offered drinks for a $10 donation. A neighborhood band warms up the evening and performs between acts.

Improv is a performance by a troupe of amateur actors who are given a word or an object or a subject which they then have to create a little skit about while sitting on stage. While the troupe has rehearsed together so that they know how to respond to each other, they make the play up on the spot with the intention of spontaneously coming up with a clever and funny and wildly innovative short skit. There were four troupes who put on fifteen minute long skits with Paul Dixon acting as MC, his own improv with ads by made up sponsors and introductions to the troupes and constant request for donations.

There is apparently an Improv community in Asheville and Black Mountain who support each other and offer classes to newcomers and hold sessions like this in various places. One skit was about two airplane pilots flying across the country on auto pilot while carousing around in the cockpit but even as I write this I can’t describe the goofiness of the skit. Another was about creating an escape room in which all kinds of wild things, all pantomimed, were happening. But describing the evening, which was great fun, is pointless. You have to be there to realize why they were having such a good time.