(December 4, 1998, © 1998 Statesman Journal)

Comedy Sportz pits two teams of improvisational actors
against each other in an arena of clean fun.

BY ANGELA POTTER
Statesman Journal

If it walks like a sport talks like a sport, then it must be a sport.

Or so say the players of ComedySportz in Spokane where a groan from the audience constitutes a foul and the name of the game is groveling for the biggest chuckle.

It's not really a sport, but with two teams, a referee and a scoreboard, the theater improvisation teams fight for laughs like the Seahawks and the Oilers battling on the gridiron.

"Players, are you ready?" yells Patrick Short, the general manager and referee. He's wearing a black and white striped shirt, a timer and a whistle.

"Yes!" they shout. Each player bristles with wit, sarcasm, rhyme and verse. In a word, they're pumped.

It's the Macadam Ants against the Mt. Tabor Tooth Tigers.

And like any other sport, fans stand up to sing the national anthem; the referee incites boos, hisses or loud cheering; and the actors, or "actietes" train vigorously before each game.

"We train like its a sport. We work on our skills in a drilling type fashion," Short says. "There are no lines to rehearse. We work on character building skills, reaction skills, speed skills and using physical space."

Each round consists of several exercises driven by audience suggestions.

After that, the players will do just about anything for a laugh except put people down or tell obscene jokes. "We make fun of what people do and not who they are," Short says.

They also avoid all the typical "isms" that offend people.

But don't think for a minute that the crowd can't come up with some pretty twisted stuff.

Imagine trying to do aikedo against Yoda while wearing Saran Wrap or swing dancing with Charles Manson wearing a tutu.

"We're expressing our inner children," Short says, who, even as a referee, clowns around with the rest of them on stage.

Each game has a different set of rules with a different goal.

In the game "Story," the audience comes up with a protagonist. Each player then makes up a portion of the story on the spot. If a player pauses or jumps on someone else's sentence, they're out. Whoever is left standing is the winner of the round.

Who's our protagonist tonight? asks the referee.

A little boy from the audience yells out "Sidttles!"

Skittles it is, chapters one, two and three.

The rules are simple: if the scene is boring, dull or uneventful, the referee blows the whistle, which gives the actlete 15 seconds to make it interesting or they get hooted off the field.
If the audience groans, the player gets what's called a "groaner foul" and is forced to apologize. If the audience does not accept it, the team loses one point and its dignity.

When a player says something obscene, lascivious or crude, the referee will place a brown paper bag over the offender's head. It's called the "brown bag fowl." The bag must remain there until the end of the scene.

One thing's for sure: the more relentless the audience, the tougher the game.

"The beauty of what we do is that sometimes the crashing and burning is funnier than the success," Short says.

The actors, who for the most part have regular 9-to-5 jobs, range in age from 22 to older than 40. The audience ranges in age from 6 to 96 and then some.

Comedy Sportz has become so popular, 24 branches have opened across the United States since it began in 1984.

"I love the creativity. It takes a quick mind to put something together in a split second," says Spokane resident Ehren Fillippello. "Also, it costs about as much as a movie and it's better."

For actress Amy "Zing" Grey, who's been at it for six years, it's good, old-fashioned fun. "There's room in society to get together and sing and act stupid without drinking," she said.

Unfortunately, she says, "the ice-cream social is behind us." But Comedy Sportz brings a piece of that squeaky clean fun back.

"We're a completely clean show," Short says. "If anyone teeters toward the crude, there's a referee."