Baton Rouge Improv Festival brings laughs, life skills back to audiences this week

Local comedians and national guests will bring the laughs to Baton Rouge at the second annual Baton Rouge Improv Festival this week.

Over the course of five days beginning April 20, professional comedians like The Boys, the ironically named duo of Rachael Mason and Susan Messing; and John Lehr, best known for his role as the Geico Caveman, will headline the festival with performances at LSU Studio Theater, LSU Greek Theater and other venues around town.

“We have people from New York, Miami, Los Angeles and all over the country to perform with their troupes,” festival CEO Brett Duggan explains. “And those will be nightly shows.”

The flip side of the festival is a standup competition for novice comedians, consisting of a 12-person elimination bracket with a final competition on Saturday.

One of the main goals of the festival is to showcase the atypical art of improv comedy in an inclusive environment where “everyone is welcome,” Duggan explains.

“Improv is something a little bit new for people in Baton Rouge,” Duggan, a professor of acting and improv at LSU, says. “They know what theater is, they know what comedy is and they understand that improv is making it up as you go along, but I don’t think everyone’s seen it and knows it very well.”

After working as a standup and improv comic for years from Los Angeles to New York City, Duggan eventually took over LSU’s improv club, LSU Improv, and began coaching the group on the personal skills required to perform improv comedy.

“Theater is very top-down, with someone in charge like a director and a writer. But in improvisation, everyone is sharing the roles of director and writer,” he explains. “You’re not just a performer, a body in space. You’re coming up with a story in your group.”

Last year the club officially evolved into a festival, expanding outside of LSU and into collaboration with Baton Rouge’s Boomerang Comedy Theater with virtual events. Not forgetting its roots, the festival’s lineup includes LSU Improv.

Beyond the typical applications of improv as a comedic tool, Duggan expresses the importance of improv skills in everyday life. Over the course of his career, he has been hired by big companies to train everyone from executives and salespeople in what he calls “human training.”

“We’ve been sort of deprogramed from our humanity,” Duggan says. “Everyone has an innate ability to intuit what other people are feeling and thinking. We are designed to work in groups.”

Appreciating others’ ideas, along with creative problem solving, are all skills Duggan attributes to a versed understanding of improvisation.

With the festival, Duggan is hoping to showcase the true extent of improv, including an improvised parade through LSU’s campus to kick off the festival that will see an improvised route, improvised costumes and improvised floats all done to “set the tone of silliness and fun” the festival embodies.

For Cindy Carter, a board member of the festival and broadcast journalism professor at LSU, improv theater is a way to learn skills she could apply to her former career as a television reporter, as well as be a part of a performance without the commitment to the regular rehearsals that came with more traditional troupes.

“It was a way I could be a part of something and if I had to miss rehearsal or even a show, the show would still go on,” Carter, a member of the comedy troupe The Overeducated alongside Duggan, says. “Being a television reporter, I bounced around many cities. And anytime I moved to a new city, I would locate an improv group.”

A non-profit, the festival is entirely volunteer-driven. Duggan and Carter want to use the festival to create a sustainable community of improv comedy in Baton Rouge.

“One of our missions is to give a lot of scholarships for workshops and bring workshops into the more underprivileged high schools, as well as one for veterans at the VA hospital,” Duggan says.

After a year without an audience, Carter feels that it’s time for improv to finally return to its true form. Being able to hear the “laughter in person is wonderful,” Carter explains.

“That connection between the audience and the performer is so amazing and being able to have that true connection is something I am really looking forward to,” Carter says.

Tickets are available at batonrougeimprovfest.com.