If you spend your nights yelling expletives at your unfunny peers who swear by reruns of “How I Met Your Mother,” raising your hands in the sky as you proclaim your feverish desire for a Tucson comedy troupe to perform a specific mix of atypical improv and improvised three-act plays for you, yell no more.
Slow Clap is the troupe for you. Founded by UA alumus/former Comedy Corner director Daniel Kirby earlier this year, Slow Clap is a five-person improvisational comedy troupe that performs monthly at the Beowulf Alley Theatre downtown.
At its core, one might call Slow Clap a long-form improvisational troupe, with its original focus being on continuous and ruleless improv jams as opposed to the kinds of short form “games” like “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Perhaps the most striking thing about Slow Clap’s brand of genius is how its members and its comedic structure are continually evolving. From the beginning Slow Clap was out to push some boundaries.
“The impetus for creating Slow Clap was to do something different, a chance for us to expand on something we already loved,” Kirby said. The members of Slow Clap have their roots in improv, all five of them having been in the UA’s own Comedy Corner at one time or another.
Yet, as opposed to Comedy Corner, which primarily revolves around pre-established improv games, Slow Clap’s long-form style ensures that the comedy it produces on a nightly basis is just as challenging for the performers as it is for the audience.
“In long form, the improvisors are asking the audience to figure out what the game is,” said Kirby, “because they don’t know themselves until they discover it onstage. It’s more challenging and requires more attention, but for those same reasons it’s also more rewarding.”
Although long-form improvisation is already hard work, for the upcoming performance this Saturday Slow Clap has devised an exciting new take on the format that pushes the troupe even further — an entirely improvised play. “We’re trying to hold together the structure of a play from improvised material,” Kirby said.
“We have a rough, simple predetermined plot, but the dialogue, character relationships, etc. are all improvised.”
It may seem like a wild concept, but as Slow Clap ventures forward and builds its fan base, it will only continue to get better.
“We push the borders of what we are comfortable with, but every new thing we do is based on expanding something we’ve already done,” Kirby said. ”We want to make you laugh in new ways.”
Amen to progress.
Slow Clap performs at Beowulf Alley Theatre (11 S. 6th Avenue) on Sept. 22nd at 10 PM.
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