Posted: Sun., Aug. 18, 2002

Comedy Brigade storms Gotham

Upright Citizens forge improv-based brand

By CHARLES LYONS

NEW YORK -- It's 9:30 on a Sunday night and the streets of Chelsea are eerily still.
But turn the corner onto 22nd Street just east of Seventh Avenue and you will see a flood of young people waiting in line for "Assscat," a long-running, long-form improv show performed by members of the Upright Citizens Brigade.

Gotham has long been known for its standup comics but not for what's known as the Harold, a style created by the late Chicago improv guru Del Close.

Several years ago, the four founding members of the UCB, Chicago transplants all, turned what was once a strip club into a black-box theater and a prime incubator of comedic talent.

But now the irreverent group is trying to edge its way into network television and feature films.

"We feel we're among the best out there," says co-founder Ian Roberts, a burly man prone to gesticulating. "People know when they come here that they're going to see some good, warped stuff. Why shouldn't it be us that gets a network show?"

Roberts and his UCB partners Matt Walsh, Amy Poehler and Matt Besser have already completed starring in one film, the comedy "Martin & Orloff," helmed by Lawrence Blume. The pic, penned by Walsh, Roberts and his wife Katie, co-starred comedians Andy Richter, David Cross, Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch and John Benjamin. It unspooled at several film fests and is seeking a distrib.

Walsh and Roberts are writing another feature script and they're convinced that the group will land a network show, having already scored a series on Comedy Central that ran from 1998-2000.

Poehler is now a regular on "Saturday Night Live." Walsh is a correspondent on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart."

The list of comics who got their break after appearing at the UCB is formidable, including current SNL performers Fey and Dratch, SNL writer Andrew Secunda, Andy Daly of "Mad TV" and Lauren Weedman of "The Daily Show." Guests at the UCG have included Janeane Garofalo, Richter, David Cross and Kim Raver.

UCB is not the only improv company in New York but, by many accounts, it's the most successful and hip, and it is the only one with a theater and a school. Other improv groups, including Three Idiots, comprised of Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, and the State, have found success but not bred it.

In addition to two or three nightly shows, the company has extended its brand through some 40 annual classes taught by a revolving roster of 20 teachers.

Actors see the classes as one of the few direct paths into the biz. If you're lucky and talented enough to make it to class level four, you then have the opportunity to enter the UCB group, whose shows attract numerous industry scouts -- from talent managers to casting directors at shows on various broadcasters and cablers.

And the UCB classes, the company's cash cow, attract students from all walks of life, including doctors, investment bankers and lawyers just looking to let off some steam.

"I have never done anything like it," says Gavin Byrne, a former Internet exec who has to returned to undergraduate collegiate life. "When I go and watch one of the Harold performing teams it's incredible because they are so sharp. What they teach you is really a muscle that you have to train. You notice yourself start to sharpen."

The UCB shows are rambunctious affairs. The audience is tightly packed into the cramped theater -- some seated, like Shakespeare's groundlings, on the stage.

On a recent night, Walsh and Roberts called out to the audience for a word, any word.

"Monopoly," volunteered an avid attendee. Out stepped Todd Hanson, a writer for satirical paper the Onion. He ruminated aloud about the word monopoly, after which Walsh, Roberts and four guests began creating scenes inspired by the word.

The guests were Daly, "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" Brian Stack and Second City performers Jodi Lennon and Jack Brayer. Each scene created by the performers morphed fluidly into the next; when a scene went flat, one of the performers tapped another on the shoulder and stepped in for him, shifting the scene in a new direction.

In one of the evening's funniest moments, Brayer and Daly were competing in a contest between two graduate students presenting their school theses.

Suddenly, as the scene grew repetitious, Lennon stepped in, pretending that her water was breaking. Walsh, Stack and Roberts joined the action to help her deliver her "baby."

"Right now, they're are not a whole lot of places where young up-and-coming improv artists can come and join in and learn about their craft," says Adrienne Stern, a casting director who recently cast the film "Martin & Orloff," written by Walsh, Roberts and his wife Katie.

Adds Naomi Frisch, director of talent at Comedy Central,"Without their theater in New York, I would not be able to see a lot of local performers. There's a standup community here but the UCB is different. That kind of support doesn't exist in the standup comedy classes."