A reflection and a look to the future!
The title of the article says it all. It has now been an entire year since Extreme Improv appeared live on stage due to the pandemic. It feels an unbelievable milestone to have reached, and one I never thought would have happened this time last year.
To answer the question of when exactly Extreme Improv will be back on stage isn’t easy. Because I don’t know exactly. All I know is that it will happen as soon as the timing is right. We’re now in a position in the UK where the vaccine is being rolled out, and talks of lessening lockdowns are happening and it feels like we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s also true that some theatre companies are making plans for live shows to come back soon, and lots already had shows on stage last year during the summer, so their return to the stage won’t be after quite so long as Extreme Improv’s will be.
So why hasn’t Extreme Improv been back on stage during the brief moments when it was allowed, and why are there not solid plans in place that can be announced already?
There’s a bunch of reasons for this. To begin with at various points over the last year I’ve made enquiries about bringing shows back to stage and with most venue partners that we’ve worked with there have either been flat out nos, restrictions on audience and performer sizes which made the endeavours unviable or with a couple of more promising options we were looking to announce a live show and then further lockdown restrictions wiped them out.
This lead to the thinking of fool me once shame on you pandemic, fool me twice pandemic…shame on me! When the first lockdown came into effect a year ago Extreme Improv was on the verge of it’s busiest and most show heavy year ever.
The growth and appetite for Extreme Improv shows grew tremendously year on year with venues super welcoming to have the show. Even though the company has existed dating back to 2010, it became Extreme Improv with the first show under that name in 2017. In that year there was 5 live shows and a few online projects. 2018 increased this to 15 live shows, including international shows and the creation of the Extreme Improv Podcasts. 2019 then racked up over 50 live shows around the world and a slew of podcasts.
This growth was amazing in so many ways, but brought a lot of lessons with it. Most prominently that an increase in shows lead to a huge increase of costs and resources becoming stretched. The aim for 2020 was to take these lessons and to make the year 2020 a better version of what had happened in 2019. Of course, by the time we reached 2020 the machine was already in motion that had been started in 2019 and for the first half of the year at least things were continuing to be just as busy as 2019 had become.
There was the thought that it may be smart to reduce the number of shows in the second half of the year a little to make each show more special to account that both performers and our regular audience would get more from each show feeling more special.
The final shows we had live in 2020 took place at the start of March, and were at the Anime and Gaming Con in Portsmouth on Sunday the 1st of March and in London on Wednesday March 4th. Both of these shows were slightly unusual shows which made them amusing for their distinction of being the last two live shows we did.
The Anime and Gaming Con was the second Extreme Improv show to happen at one of these cons, and we had previously done a show in London which was itself a chaotic show in front of hundreds of people with a constant stream of the kind of geek culture suggestions we’ll now use as the focus of the Geek Battle comedy show that we’ll be debuting on the Extreme Improv social media channels this week.
Unlike the London show where we had a full team of regular performers, the plan with the show down in Portsmouth was that just a couple of regulars would attend and we’d invite some local performers to join us on stage. The day of the show an issue meant that I would have to go alone, and for the first time ever would be doing a live show where I was the only person who had done an Extreme Improv show before and would have the rest of the cast made up entirely of guests.
The venue wasn’t quite as elaborate as the London show, and whilst we still had a big audience it was the hundreds we’d had in London. But to be fair this made it for a more intimate show which works well with an interactive show. Joining me on stage we actually had a few members of the Portsmouth Improv Experience and another local performer. All of them have since joined Extreme Improv Xstreamed shows online, with Danny George in particular being a regular face whom I couldn’t have imagined would be able to be in so many Extreme Improv shows before Zoom based virtual theatre could have made it possible.
After the show where it was just me representing the regular performers, it was back to business as usual with a show in London the following week with a guest show which was raising money for sharks. Yes that’s right, the final ever (to date) Extreme Improv live on stage show was a charity show raising money for sharks.
Doing the Shark Show was myself, Sam and Angus who have been doing the show regularly for a long time. What makes this a funny final show, isn’t just for the oddness of it being a show raising money for sharks, but that I didn’t even know we were doing it until a couple of days before hand.
Organising shows can sometimes be chaotic and last minute, but this was a show which was mostly organised over whatsapp which I rarely use and didn’t really know any details on the event until shortly before. I forget where the venue was off the top of my head, but it was a non traditional performance space which wasn’t well lit and audience and performers were all watching the other acts in the same area.
The unusual aspects of the event aside, the other acts that went on before us all were fun, although there was a power point presentation about sharks included which was an experience. We then did our set which went down well. Because the venue had an unusual layout I made the decision not to attempt to film the show as I often will. At the time I didn’t mind, but it’s a shame that the final Extreme Improv live show for over a year has now been lost to time.
After our act there was I believe one more act before an intermission. It was at this stage, we elected to step outside for some air. At this stage there was all kinds of talk and rumours in the news about ‘a pandemic’ and so we decided to make an early exit. None of us knew that this would turn out to be the final live show for at least a year (and counting) but it certainly won’t be last show. It does feel kind of hilarious that such an oddball show would stand for this stretch of time as a ‘season finale’.
To again address my thoughts of when Extreme Improv will next be live on stage, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter and it’s going to be very exciting to bring the show back to the stage. There were many new games that were planned for 2020 which never got to happen. Some of them debuted on the Xstreamed shows over zoom, but are yet to play out on stage. Others haven’t been attempted as yet and it’ll be great to get to a rehearsal room to fine tune them before going live. There’s also lots of new possibilities in terms of the wealth of new performers who have only performed with Extreme Improv over zoom, who we look forward to having in real life. Many regular players have never met in the real world yet, and there are regular players who did live shows who haven’t regularly played online, and some who haven’t done streaming shows at all.
We’ve also played lots of new formats that have included the Extreme Improv Revenge of the Werewolf/Mafia shows and the new Jesters Jam and Championship Festivals. Initial plans are happening for options to bring these to in real life venues for the first time, whilst also maintaining a healthy amount of online content.
There are exciting times ahead, and as impatient as we all are for things to go back to normal, we’re all building up a hunger for the feast that will come soon!
Extreme Improv XStreamed will be debuting lots of new shows online on the Extreme Improv YouTube Channel in the near future. Make sure you smash that subscribe button to see all of what we have coming up, as well as right here on www.xstreamed.tv
