The Un-Scripted Show Blog

Everyone put on your best Don LaFontaine voice (may he rest in peace!) and read this text with me:

In A World ... just like our own—with one key difference.

  A cultural norm.  A technological miracle.  Or even the laws of physics...

Each night, you determine the change, and the Un-Scripted Theater Company will be your guide on a feature-length improvised-theater journey to this new world. Spanning the gamut of genres, from science fiction to magical realism to just plain . . . different, the only boundaries are in your imagination. Find out how life is different, yet strangely familiar, In A World...

Playing July 8 through August 28 in a theater near you. Which theater? There can be only one. The SF Playhouse, at 533 Sutter St. In San Francisco.

That's right! In A World..., our newestest show, opens Next Week! Thursdays through Saturdays at 8pm -- and we're back at the SF Playhouse again, hurrah!

We've never done this show before, and as you probably know if you're reading our blog, the show, especially a new one, evolves throughout the process, so come help us shape our new creation! On the first night of the show (and possibly the rest of the first weekend), we have a talkback after the show -- where YOU tell US what you thought. What did you like, what were you expecting, what could we add that would be awesome, that sort of thing.

And to help you out, you can get tickets for our subscriber price: 25% off! Just use the coupon code SPECIAL on our website between now and opening weekend, to get that awesome deal.

(AND, as you also may know, patrons at the first weekend get a special present: coupons to come see the show AGAIN at half price. Cause this is an eight-week run. We expect it to change a LOT.)

See you at the show, improv fans! Start dreaming of your alternate universes NOW.

Hi guys! Mandy here. (Logged in as "Cast" as a test.)

I just finished reading a book that I immediately, basically on the first page, decided that Dave and the production team for In A World should read. Not only is it deeeeelightful, but it goes right along with the theme of a world like ours with one strange twist. So, I hereby recommend:

The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep And Never Had To, by DC Pierson. (He's even an improvisor! He apparently performed with UCB in New York.)

 

The novel is from the point of view of a high schooler (written in a simply, I say, deeeeeelightfully hilarious voice) who, in the battle for attention in high school, sits decidedly on the sidelines. He unexpectedly connects with another student in the same high-school-society caste. Like all high schoolers, they each have some weird personal secrets. That's pretty much all I'm going to tell you.

 

LIke I said, I really enjoyed the voice of the main character -- something like the painful teenage angst of Nick Hornby's About a Boy but as funny maybe as Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything Is Illuminated. It really feels like an actual person (and in the dialogue, actual *people*) talking. I guess I'm saying, it's really . . . Authentic.

 

This book made me guffaw. Quite often. Which, for a book rooted in High School Drama, is saying a lot for me.

 

It also made me think of In A World ... not only because I totally thought Dave would love it (are you reading this, Dave? Read this book!), but because the quirk that makes the world different, it only has significance as filtered through the lives of the characters. It's their relationships that take center stage; the Quirk is only a catalyst. Rather than A Book About Something Strange That Happens, this is a book about people who are changed by the strange AND the familiar . . . it's ALL stuff that happens to them and is almost equally important.

 

You can find the book on Amazon, here . . . you don't have to take MY word for it.

Da duh, DUN!

 

That's right, improv fans! The FIRST SHOW of our eighth season opens this week!

Un-Scripted: unscripted -- an improvised improv show.

This is a shortform show that we've done before, and we've had a great time -- and so have audiences. Basically, the goal is to challenge, surprise, and delight ourselves, each other, and the audience -- from the time the show starts, the improv doesn't stop. (Well, except for intermission, silly.) We don't even pause to talk to the audience or the other improvisors, unless it's in character! (Gone are those boring introductions and explanations.) And we don't always let our fellow improvisors in on what's going on . . . watch as we all figure out together how the show will unfold! Maybe scenes will come back; maybe they won't. Maybe someone in a scene is playing one game, and someone else is playing a completely different one, and they both have no idea. Maybe a scene will last 10 minutes -- or 10 seconds. And you never know, we might start to sing.

We're having a great time rehearsing for it; you can read more about those rehearsals on Alan's blog, "Something Like a Chicken Sandwich".

The show opens on February 18, and runs Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8pm until March 13. We're in a new location for this run, the Off-Market Theater in downtown San Francisco. Check out un-scripted.com for all the show details.

We have some really fun new castmembers that we've never worked with before, in addition to familiar faces. You can read the cast bios on our web page!

And, for those of you who are our beloved Un-Scripted supporters, have we got a deal for you! Subscriptions to our Eighth Season are on sale now -- AND, if you subscribe before March 1, you get an awesome bonus. Subscriptions purchased before March 1 will include two EXTRA tickets. That's six tickets for the price of three! Follow the link now to become a subscriber and new best friend!

And what's coming up later this season, you ask? Why, two brand-new longform shows!

In July and August, it's (working-title) What If? a show that takes place in a slightly altered reality from our own. As director Dave Dyson says, "it's a world where just one thing is different." The style could be like Harry Potter, Like Water For Chocolate, Mad Max, The Martian Chronicles, or . . . anything else! You let us know what you're dreaming of, and we make it real.

In November and December, it's (working-title) A Tale of Two Genres -- an improvised musical in the style of Charles Dickens PLUS another genre supplied by you. It'll be as if Dickens and his time-travelling collaborator, whoever that might be, wrote a musical together. We had so much fun at this summer's Temporary Improv Festival when we mixed Dickens and John Hughes (plus tragedy and horror), that we figure everything goes better with Dickens. Just in time for the holidays, come join the fun!

Back in 2004, the first year we did Let It Snow, our second show was set in Kellyville, OK. It featured what to this day is one of the catchiest opening choruses (if I do say so myself) in "Kellyville, so close to being famous. Kellyville, so close!" In the audience that night was Tim Bauer, who years later would perform with us in the Great Puppet Musical, and his wife who was with him gave us the suggestion Kellyville.

Flash forward to 2008 and Tara McDonough (who directed Let It Snow in 2004, 2005, and 2007) while driving across country goes right through Kellyville and snaps this photo!