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Arts & Entertainment

Improv Improves the Community

The Basement Theatre in Buckhead makes big impact on the community from a small basement location.

There is never a bad idea for the Basement Theatre's J. Star, only more routes to consider. “Yes, and…” he teaches his students to say to one another, so no idea is ever overlooked.

“If somebody makes a hand motion, you make a hand motion,” he said to an Improv II class, encouraging the students to work together. “You’re the artist, trust it! Trust yourself!”

Soon enough, one skit produced seven adults squatting and hitting the ground making tribal chanting noises until they didn’t know what else to do. It's times like that J. Star steps in to direct and guide the players smoothly into a new scene.

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As seemingly go-with-the-flow improv is, an engaging performance requires actors who are trained in the art. The Basement Theatre is the only live theater company in Buckhead, training anyone who wants to learn and practice improv techniques, and holding multiple improv and stand-up comedy performances each week.

After each practice skit, J. Star helps the students analyze what happened. “How did you feel about what we just did?” he asks. Rolling up his sleeves, poised on his barefoot toes, he gives an energetic answer to every student’s question.

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Craig Zeiss started working with The Basement more than three years ago, when he discovered that doing improv helped alleviate his social anxiety disorder. “[Improv] gives you the freedom of just not caring how you come across as much,” he said. According to Zeiss, everyone can benefit from doing improv, but children gain the most from it.

J. Star, owner and creator of the theatre, created a summer improv camp for children with developmental disabilities such as Asperger’s, autism and ADD. Now the program, called Shenanigans, serves disabled adults as well as children, with weekly classes, workshops and summer camps. The director remembers one parent who said her child came back from a two-hour improv class with more improvement in his conversation skills than she had ever seen through two years of speech therapy. J. Star said improv is all about communicating an idea to get other people on board. He said it challenges students with developmental disabilities to adjust their thoughts and words to respond appropriately to what someone else just said.

 “It’s a tennis game, you have to listen to how they just served you the ball,” J. Star said.

J. Star began acting as a child, performing in his basement on a theater his grandfather built. His passion for acting led him to be in TV commercials and movies, and to study at the Georgia State theater school. He said he never imagined acting could become his career. Now J. Star continues to teach classes internationally and attends improv festivals in various states across the United States.

The troupe recently attended a Shakespeare improv festival, in which, at the request of an audience member, the team improvised an entire Shakespearian play… in iambic pentameter.

But The Basement players don’t just study the great works of Shakespeare, they also play with puppets, a unique way to add characters to a scene. The theater’s Puckin Fuppet improv show uses hand puppets, and is recommended only for adult audiences. However, J. Star said anyone and everyone enjoys the regular theatrical improv shows. The 8 p.m  Friday performance is specifically advertised as family-friendly; the director said this warning is mostly to thwart audience members from shouting out anything inappropriate.

The Basement Theatre has something called the corporate program – a resource for business teams who are not “getting along” to work out problems within the group. The team signs up (or their boss signs them up) to take an improv class, intending to learn how to work more successfully together. J. Star said an improv class will reveal the “trouble-maker” in just a few minutes, because he is the one trying to force his ideas. When that happens, he said everyone notices that “energy is sucked out of the group,” and the problem-person usually repents. “Improv teaches listening,” J. Star said.

This week, through Sunday, The Basement Theatre is holding its third annual improv festival, Spontaneous Combustion. J. Star explained that with improv, actors make something out of nothing. Improv groups from all over the country, and Canada, are joining The Basement players for five days of improv shows and workshops, including a Sunday night Improv Jam. The event began Wednesday.

J. Star is making plans to move the theater to a bigger space with more street presence, while maintaining the intimate feel of the current basement theater room, which seats 50 audience members. He is raising funds through the Brick By Brick capital campaign. Supporters can donate money to have their name inscribed on a brick that will build a wall of the new theater space. One mantra J. Star teaches his improv players is, “bring a brick,” which means, bring an idea to the group and it will help create a whole production.

For the festival this week, buy tickets at the door with cash only or in advance online at SpontaneousCombustionAtlanta.com. Student discounts apply.

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