There are scholars out there who cast doubt on Shakespeare’s identity and speculate as to whether someone else might have written his plays. But there’s another entity that continues to generate Shakespeare-adjacent performances, even though they’re limited editions: The Improvised Shakespeare Company, a merry band of improv artists from Chicago who for two decades have been inventing “new works” based on titles suggested by audience members.
In a recent phone conversation, founder Blaine Swen told CityBeat that he went to the Windy City in the early 2000s to pursue a graduate degree (he earned a doctorate in philosophy from Loyola University in Chicago). While there, he auditioned for legendary improv troupe Second City and was selected for its student stage where young improv performers could experiment. He had been doing short-form improvs (3-5 minutes) in different styles — a Western, for instance, or a musical and occasionally in Elizabethan/Shakespearean style. “I thought I could put together a great improvised Shakespeare show.” That approach really worked.
He called his troupe the Improvised Shakespeare Company. “We ran for five shows, and it was a ball,” Swen explained. “From there, other opportunities opened up for the show to keep running, and now it’s been going for more than 20 years! Even with those first five shows, everything was completely improvised. All we did was work with the title of a play that had never been written — then we improvised that play.” Swen and his team will entertain Cincinnati audiences with performances on Oct.11 and 12.
Each improviser has some acting experience with Shakespeare’s plays. “But the core DNA of the show is improv comedy,” said Swen. “You will see as much influence from Monty Python or The Simpsons as from Shakespeare in our show. If you enjoy and love Shakespeare, there are things or references that you will recognize. But even if you don’t love Shakespeare, you’re going to get a ton out of it and understand a lot of the references that we’re making to contemporary pop culture.”
It's a simple process. Swen asks audience members to shout out a title for a play that’s never been written. In cities where they haven’t performed (this is their first visit to Cincinnati), audiences sometimes wonder, “Do they really want us to shout?” Typically some courageous person sounds off.
“I’ll take that one, the first one we clearly hear,” he explains. “We get all kinds of titles. Sometimes they are references to Shakespearean plays, like ‘Green Eggs and Hamlet’ or ‘Midsummer Night’s Menopause.’ One of my favorites was the ‘Rocky Hamlet Picture Show.’ Sometimes people just yell out something that’s in their brain: ‘Munchos vs. Funyums’ or ‘Justin Bieber.’ We’ll take one of those titles and make a Shakespeare play out of it.” He encourages everyone coming to see their show to bring a clever title they’re ready to shout out.
Some people have tried to stump Swen and his four fellow performers. For example, “Things that are anachronistic, ‘Robots on Mars,’ or something like that. We always find a way to make it Shakespearean. We’ll reference the god of war, and we’ll start to have a war play. But the great thing about working together as a group of five, even when I’m personally stumped, the chances are that the other players will have an idea and put it out. We play with the spirit of supporting the idea that gets put on the stage. We’re not wrestling with each other. We keep supporting each other and building from that.”
Because the players are improvisers who must work in the moment, they virtually never repeat themselves. “We exercise a very strong short-term memory,” Swen said. “But our long-term memory for the shows is pretty weak. Sometimes people will say they saw us seven years ago and, ‘You did this and this and this.’ And I’ll say, ‘That sounds so fun and so funny, I wish I could remember it!’ Because we’ve done so many, you just sort of learn to let it go.”
The performers really cannot plan in detail for their 80-minute performances. “We are drawing from Shakespeare, so we have a lot of fun Shakespearean archetypes to play with.” For example, “We know that somebody will be desperate for love or hungry for power. They’ll have these deep, driving Shakespearean emotions. But beyond that, we are really doing this in the spirit of improv, building on one another’s ideas and working together to create something entertaining.”
Swen loves the in-the-moment nature of improv. “You can’t dwell on the past, and you can’t plan too much for the future because you don’t know what’s going to happen. The best improv is done when you’re just completely present and really taking in what’s happening onstage so you can react to it and build on it.”
The Improvised Shakespeare Company is on the road for 100-150 days out of the year, so they have plenty of practice. They’re eager to meet Cincinnati audiences for the first time. “One of the most fun things about our show is having a bunch of people together in one room, all laughing together, no matter who you are.”
The Improvised Shakespeare Company will perform at the Aronoff Center’s Jarson-Kaplan Theater on Oct. 11 and 12. More info: cincinnatiarts.org.
This story is featured in CityBeat's Oct. 2 print edition.
