Improv Away

Whose Live Anyway?

Friday, October 19, 2012 9:30 p.m.

Smothers Theatre -- Pepperdine University

Linda saw that Goldstar had tickets available for this show, so I happily agreed to go with her.  We met at Coogie's for dinner, and the server seemed to be less-than-pleased to have to work on a Friday night, but he perked up a tiny bit before we left.  We got some coffee at Starbucks (Linda finally had a Pumpkin Spice Latte and loved it), and we talked to a guy whom is a limo driver.  He told us stories about celebrities that I will not mention here.

Players:

• Ryan Stiles
• Greg Proops
• Joel Murray (subbing for Chip Esten, whom was working on Nashville)
• Jeff Davis

My thoughts:

• While waiting for the show to start, we tried to guess who would be chosen to participate in the evening's show.  I was right about one person.
• Hilarity all around, of course.  I miss seeing the TV show.
• Proops was the moderator, and he said that yes, they were missing the bald guy, the black guy and the rich guy.
• Lots of audience participation, although Proops declined someone that was too eager to join them on stage.  
• That one girl was really not good at sound effects, to the point where Ryan decided that all of her sounds were like he was urinating, and narrated as such.  I wondered how surprised they would be if they chose Jeff Thacher without knowing his talents.
• Loved Celebrity Jeopardy, during which Murray played his brother Bill,  and Davis played Keanu Reeves.  I wanted to tell Joel Murray that his brother was actually in "Space Jam" because he acted like he didn't know, although he did do a great impression.  Jeff Davis was awesome as Keanu.  Like, so very, very Keanu.
• Can't remember the name of the game, but it was fun to watch them change film/theater genres as they read lines given to them on slips of paper from the audience.  The audience favorite was High School Musical Kabuki Theater.  When Gangnam Style was suggested, they reacted with "What?"
• Great idea:  "Name an unlikely place for two people to meet."  Answer: A cemetery.  The guys then started the game as grave robbers with metal detectors.

That was a good time.  My cheeks ached from all of the smiling and laughing.