How Butterr Improv is turning ‘living room’ dynamics into unscripted comedy nights

It all starts in a “living room.”

Six performers gather on stage and begin riffing on a chosen theme. It could be vacation, family or birthday cakes, and it’s meant to spark a conversation. The players lean into the topic, cheerfully exploring its possibilities. The banter meanders, soon narrowing into a promising sub-topic.

Then it’s on.

The group seizes on this new idea, clapping their hands to signal the official start of their first improv set. And for the next 15 minutes, they gab in the spirit of a dysfunctional ’90s sitcom family while the audience witnesses unscripted, slapstick flow.

Welcome to improv brought to you by Butterr, a homegrown troupe that regularly performs at Baton Rouge’s Boomerang Comedy Theater and Hartley/Vey Studio Theatre, as well as Big Couch in New Orleans.

Butterr began performing improv, the without-a-net comedy medium, in earnest in September 2023. Its members had bonded months earlier in the first of several classes at Boomerang, the Mid City club that offers comedy and improv instruction, along with live shows.

“Someone bought the class for me as a gift,” says Butterr member Chelsea Jones, who heads up marketing for Perkins Rowe by day. “The first couple classes were pretty terrifying.”

But then it clicked, Jones says. Under the direction of teacher and Boomerang co-founder Angi Noote, Jones says she was quickly able to establish a sense of trust and timing with fellow students Jenn Ocken, Abby Cramond, Ryan Gray and Peterr Lukinovich. (The two Rs in Peterr’s name would inspire the group’s catchy spelling.)

The new friends eventually decided to take their talents live. By then, they’d also pulled in Noote to join them.

Butterr deploys what’s known as the living room format, a type of improv that starts with a couch conversation. It’s anyone’s guess where the material will go, but the performers follow the basic improv principle of “yes, and”—a reminder to add to, not take away from, what’s being said. Success rests on trusting your teammates.

“You’re breaking down all your vulnerabilities together,” Jones says.

Ocken, a local photographer who delivers speeches on the creative process through her side business Thriv, says she never imagined becoming an improv performer.

“I did the class to help with public speaking,” she says. “Someone suggested it to me, and I immediately jumped on it. Serendipitously, I met all these incredible people, and I just love performing with them.”

While the form is mostly intended to elicit chuckles, sometimes other emotions can be front and center. Ocken recalls an argument she performed with Lukinovich. Jones says she once attended an improv that brought the audience to tears. Butterr members say it’s about digging deep and seeing what happens.

You know, improvising.

Save the date

July 25

Improv Comedy Night, featuring Butterr Improv and The Family Dinner Comedy Troupe 7:30 p.m. at Hartley/Vey Studio Theatre

This article was originally published in the July 2025 issue of 225 Magazine.