Sea Tea Improv’s Family Show
Sea Tea Comedy Theater
Hartford
Oct. 22
I had to think fast — and not insult the kindergartener in the audience.
I was in the audience myself at the latest weekly family-friendly performance by Hartford’s Sea Tea troupe. Since the shows rely on audience participation, that meant I was part of the show. I had to come up with a name for a scenario involving an unfolding car chase. And I had to keep it PG.
Sea Tea Improv is a comedy troupe formed by seven friends back in 2009. They hold performances throughout the Greater Hartford area, where they bring their unique style of audience-fueled improvisation to the masses. The group also offers weekly shows and lessons for those who want to improve their own improv skills.
I had shown up at this performance in the first place because I had had such a good time on a previous evening at an R‑Rated Mark Twain event that featured snippets by the Sea Tea troupe. I decided I had to see what the full-blown improv experience was all about.
Improv is such a fun experience because of the way it shows how performing works in real time. The performers know which games they’re going to play, but truly have no idea what form the game will take thanks to the audience. The audience provides the ideas and prompts that the performers work from. During my visit we had an enthusiastic audience lobbing suggestions like comedy bombs.
One example was a game where a performer was the host of a party. They had to leave the room while the audience determined who the guests were, then come back and figure out who was there. The guests we came up with were James Bond (who also loves pork rinds), Jerry Seinfeld, and a broom who moonlights as an accountant. No matter how outrageous the clues, everyone stayed in character and the party host actually managed to guess all three.
Often left undiscussed is just how difficult it is to come up with material on the spot at improv, especially appropriate material. I took a theater class in college where we did some improvisational exercises, and it never failed: before long the skits turned towards sex or violence, or both.
For whatever reason, people tend to trend towards the vulgar and obscene when put on the spot. I found myself in that spot when I volunteered for the penultimate game.
I was on a team with Alex and Allison. We were driving a car, and when we looked out the window, we saw the other team, who would chase us away and take the car. The catch was, we had to name our attackers based on initials given to us by the audience.
In this case, the initials were AD.
One can only imagine all of the inappropriate names I thought to call our attackers based on those letters. As the bright lights beat down on me, I froze momentarily, wracking my brain for something to say in front of our 5‑year old audience member.
“Oh no, here comes the … axing distractors?”
I shrugged goofily. The performers didn’t miss a beat.
They approached our car (actually three chairs), swinging imaginary axes and absently answering phone calls, looking at butterflies, or yawning dramatically. I couldn’t stay in character; I laughed as I realized they were the distracted, ax-wielding car thieves I conjured.
Throughout a few more rounds we also came up with “angry dinosaurs” and “angelic deliverymen.”
Acting is hard, and being funny is even harder. Doing both at the same time? That’s what the professionals at Sea Tea Improv are for, and I recommend you check them out in person.
NEXT
Sea Tea Comedy Theater hosts the Show Lab, where the performers experiment with new comedy ideas.
Jamil learns the story of Lizzie Borden through the medium of rock.
