BASICS — Road Less Traveled Productions presents Hour Town – An Improvised Play Series for two nights in May – Wednesday May 17 at 7:30pm and late-night on Saturday May 20 at 10:30pm. The late-night Saturday May 20 performance will feature special guest actor Christian Brandjes as he joins the crew improvising! Christian was last seen as Hercule Poirot in All for One Theatre Productions’ Murder on the Orient Express at Shea’s 710 Theatre. Tickets are $15 and can be ordered online at www.roadlesstraveledproductions.org, by calling the RLTP Box Office at (716) 629-3069, or by visiting the Box Office during the 30 minutes prior to any performance. Advance purchase is suggested.
RUNTIME: About one hour
THUMBNAIL SKETCH— Join the cast of some of Buffalo’s best improv talents, as they improvise an entire play, all while utilizing the current stage and set at Road Less Traveled Theater! This May, watch performers Kevin DiLucente, Don Gervasi, Todd Benzin, Annie Moor, Meghan Joyce and Jimmie Byrd perform on the set of Sweat! Hour Town is the perfect mix of grounded theater, and laugh-out-loud improv comedy. One night of theater never seen before, and never to be seen again!
THE PLAYERS, THE PLAY, AND THE PRODUCTION:
Improv is off-the-cuff acting — it is akin to jazz music. Performing long form improv takes a combination of innate talent, chutzpah, team work, great listening skills, and years of practice until improv skills and mores become second nature. Imagine — the set is standing, the audience is waiting but there has been no rehearsal. There is no script. The performers don’t even know what characters they’ll be playing. This is the proverbial actors’ nightmare!!! But for improvisors this is exciting, and for the audience this is amazing and fun.
Hour Town is especially enjoyable if you’ve seen the Road Less Travelled production that the set was built for. This week’s Hour Time is performed on the set of Sweat. Sweat is so memorable and intense and dramatic that it’s a little mind-boggling to see this tavern become the stage for a comedy!
The Hour Town company is Meghan Joyce and Jimmie Byrd from Comedysportz, Annie Moor from Improv Theatre in Buffalo and Magnet Theatre in NYC, and Kevin DiLucente who organizes improv jams and workshops all over town. Rounding out the cast are WNY’s Improv Kings — Don Gervasi and Todd Benzin of Babushka and Eclectic Company and Comedysportz alumni. Some of the players have studied improv at Second City Toronto and Upright Citizen’s Brigade. A special guest star joined the cast last night – actor Chris Brandjes, a theatre professor at Daemen University.
The audience decides what the title of the play will be and this time around it was Last Call – a play about a bar full of woebegone folks who had lost their dreams. At the center of the story was a love triangle – Todd Benzin played a guy who was torn between two sisters — a perennially 22 year old romantic and her flirty sibling. Rounding out the bar scene were a host of fascinating characters – all created on the spot: Derek (aka Bobby) the hapless bartender, a sad young guy with a video game fixation, a fellow who had been sleeping under a pool table for 39 years, and R.A.T. who had a transcendent experience in the basement. Added to this mix was a lot of heavy drinking of beer and distilled water, a C – pack machine, and a set of problematic stairs and there were mighty interesting doings (and much laughter) before the “last call” on the set of Sweat last night.
It is wonderful watching actors being so creative and the Hour Town cast is uniformly talented and confident. My one challenge with the production was losing occasional dialogue due to low volume.
Additional Hour Town perks are the gorgeous new cocktail lounge in the RLT lobby and the fact that downtown street parking is easy to attain on most Wednesday nights.
Hour Town is a very special evening of theatre — impressive, extraordinary, and lots of fun. It is thrilling that Buffalo finally has a growing improv community and that such good work is being performed.
The Hour Town series will continue next season on each of the sets of The Road Less Traveled Productions.
*HERD OF BUFFALO (Notes on the Rating System)
ONE BUFFALO: This means trouble. A dreadful play, a highly flawed production, or both. Unless there is some really compelling reason for you to attend (i.e. you are the parent of someone who is in it), give this show a wide berth.
TWO BUFFALOS: Passable, but no great shakes. Either the production is pretty far off base, or the play itself is problematic. Unless you are the sort of person who’s happy just going to the theater, you might look around for something else.
THREE BUFFALOS: I still have my issues, but this is a pretty darn good night at the theater. If you don’t go in with huge expectations, you will probably be pleased.
FOUR BUFFALOS: Both the production and the play are of high caliber. If the genre/content are up your alley, I would make a real effort to attend.
FIVE BUFFALOS: Truly superb–a rare rating. Comedies that leave you weak with laughter, dramas that really touch the heart. Provided that this is the kind of show you like, you’d be a fool to miss it!
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