Yes, And?: Kareem Badr and Kaci Beeler of After School Improv and This Week Tonight
The power of suggestion
"Cindy's pregnant… and hooked on PCP!" Kaci Beeler (middle) gossips, Kareem Badr (left) denies culpability
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In improvisation, the suggestion is many things: a jumping-off point, the seed of a running theme, a way to make the audience feel as though they’ve contributed something to the proceedings. With “Yes, And?,” The A.V. Club takes that age-old technique and applies it to the stuffy journalistic standby of the Q&A, framing an interview with local and touring improv comedians around a randomly generated word. In this edition, Kareem Badr and Kaci Beeler take time off from their regular duties with Parallelogramophonograph to talk about The Hideout Theatre's concurrent mainstage shows, After School Improv and This Week Tonight.
The suggestion: Knockabout
The A.V. Club: What kind of issues does After School Improv tackle?
Kaci Beeler: Well, you know, these teenagers are knockin’ about, and we’re going to show their plight as they grapple with their morals.
Kareem Badr: And how to knock about with their private parts.
AVC: Is anything off-limits?
Beeler: I think we’ve found a tasteful way to deal with any problem. We don’t have to show rape on stage or something terrible like that.
Badr: We don’t have to…
Beeler: Like teenagers grappling with space travel problems or alien girlfriends. We don’t want to do that.
Badr: For the most part, spell-casting at Hogwarts isn’t going to be a teenage problem. We won’t take a serious issue like spousal abuse and mock it for an hour. The whole point is to entertain the audience, and if half the time they’re wondering if they should be laughing, it’s probably not going to work.
AVC: How does This Week Tonight work?
Badr: We have five improvisers, both players and directors, and each one takes turns directing scenes highlighting an item in the news. In addition, they have some sort of goal, like they want scenes where there isn’t so much talking, or scenes where people are playing hyper-realistically. Also we’ve created this concept of the "editor-in-chief" who watches, and if one of the scenes is a complete knockabout, the editor-in-chief will assess that the scene didn’t go so well and issue a “special assignment” to the director. It’s kind of a punishment. It makes the improviser bare their soul to the audience.
Beeler: You might have to apologize to an audience member, telling them why you’re a terrible improviser.
Badr: Or state three “headlines” from your life that you wouldn’t want anyone to know. Or read off your obituary.
AVC: Have you combed through ABC'S After School Specials to prepare for After School Improv?
Beeler: I think you have to, else you get into this rut of doing what you think it looks like. There's this set of DVDs—
Badr: That we found for $7, because no one wants to watch them besides us.
Beeler: They’re After School Specials from the 1970s to the 1980s. Some of them are really bizarre and not useful, but some are great. There’s one about this teen girl whose mother has an alcohol problem, and there’s a lot of great melodramatic moments. Like, “Mom, is there vodka in your tomato juice?”
Badr: [Playing the drunk mom.] "What, honey? Why would you think there’s vodka in my tomato juice? Come here and give your mother a kiss." [Unintelligible slurring.]
Beeler: We took the parts that we really liked and put those gimmicks and contrivances into the show.
Badr: There’s always someone in an After-School Special that gives absolutely horrible advice. You’re usually going to learn that the right thing to do is go to a meeting where there’s a bunch of Christians. It’s all about pamphlets and phone numbers. They absolutely discourage all manner of knockabout behavior and anything that might lead to future knockabout behavior.
AVC: Is it hard not to devolve into complete melodrama?
Beeler: As a director, I told the cast that there are three types of acting: Melodramatic, realistic, and stylized, and we want to go between realistic and melodramatic. We definitely don’t want the main character to be too melodramatic, but some of those throwaway, walk-on characters can be as melodramatic as they want.
Badr: If the teenager with the problem is too melodramatic, the audience kind of switches off. Even though we’re parodying After-School Specials, you can still have these sweet, dramatic moments onstage.
Beeler: Especially with the music we have. The cheesiest flute music I’ve ever heard.
Badr: It sounds like if Yanni and John Tesh knocked about in the studio for a while. It’s brilliant.
AVC: Do the shows have over-the-top titles like “My Dad Lives In A Downtown Hotel?”
Badr: The title of the one with the drunk mother is called “Francesca, Baby.” The mother is constantly like [Slurring], “Oh, Francesca, baby, you’re my baby. I love you.”
Beeler: There was one I watched called “Beat The Turtle Drum,” and it had absolutely nothing to do with turtles or drums or Indians. It was about a girl who wants a horse and then falls out of a tree. I guess something was lost in the translation.
AVC: Is there any worry about bias on This Week Tonight?
Badr: One of the things we’ve talked about is giving each director a persona, like maybe I’ll pick from only right-wing sources and play it up as if I’m a right-wing blowhard.
Beeler: Or maybe I’ll play a soccer mom character who only cares about news that has to do with children and safety.
Badr: It’s not like we’re going to be presenting all left-wing stuff because we’re in Austin and we’re a bunch of hippies.
AVC: Anything else knocking about in there?
Beeler: Kareem has a huge knockabout.
Badr: If you’re knocking about downtown, and you don’t have anything to do, you should come to the Hideout and knock about upstairs, knock back a few beers and watch a few awesome improvisers knock about onstage.
Kaci Beeler: Well, you know, these teenagers are knockin’ about, and we’re going to show their plight as they grapple with their morals.
Kareem Badr: And how to knock about with their private parts.
AVC: Is anything off-limits?
Beeler: I think we’ve found a tasteful way to deal with any problem. We don’t have to show rape on stage or something terrible like that.
Badr: We don’t have to…
Beeler: Like teenagers grappling with space travel problems or alien girlfriends. We don’t want to do that.
Badr: For the most part, spell-casting at Hogwarts isn’t going to be a teenage problem. We won’t take a serious issue like spousal abuse and mock it for an hour. The whole point is to entertain the audience, and if half the time they’re wondering if they should be laughing, it’s probably not going to work.
AVC: How does This Week Tonight work?
Badr: We have five improvisers, both players and directors, and each one takes turns directing scenes highlighting an item in the news. In addition, they have some sort of goal, like they want scenes where there isn’t so much talking, or scenes where people are playing hyper-realistically. Also we’ve created this concept of the "editor-in-chief" who watches, and if one of the scenes is a complete knockabout, the editor-in-chief will assess that the scene didn’t go so well and issue a “special assignment” to the director. It’s kind of a punishment. It makes the improviser bare their soul to the audience.
Beeler: You might have to apologize to an audience member, telling them why you’re a terrible improviser.
Badr: Or state three “headlines” from your life that you wouldn’t want anyone to know. Or read off your obituary.
AVC: Have you combed through ABC'S After School Specials to prepare for After School Improv?
Beeler: I think you have to, else you get into this rut of doing what you think it looks like. There's this set of DVDs—
Badr: That we found for $7, because no one wants to watch them besides us.
Beeler: They’re After School Specials from the 1970s to the 1980s. Some of them are really bizarre and not useful, but some are great. There’s one about this teen girl whose mother has an alcohol problem, and there’s a lot of great melodramatic moments. Like, “Mom, is there vodka in your tomato juice?”
Badr: [Playing the drunk mom.] "What, honey? Why would you think there’s vodka in my tomato juice? Come here and give your mother a kiss." [Unintelligible slurring.]
Beeler: We took the parts that we really liked and put those gimmicks and contrivances into the show.
Badr: There’s always someone in an After-School Special that gives absolutely horrible advice. You’re usually going to learn that the right thing to do is go to a meeting where there’s a bunch of Christians. It’s all about pamphlets and phone numbers. They absolutely discourage all manner of knockabout behavior and anything that might lead to future knockabout behavior.
AVC: Is it hard not to devolve into complete melodrama?
Beeler: As a director, I told the cast that there are three types of acting: Melodramatic, realistic, and stylized, and we want to go between realistic and melodramatic. We definitely don’t want the main character to be too melodramatic, but some of those throwaway, walk-on characters can be as melodramatic as they want.
Badr: If the teenager with the problem is too melodramatic, the audience kind of switches off. Even though we’re parodying After-School Specials, you can still have these sweet, dramatic moments onstage.
Beeler: Especially with the music we have. The cheesiest flute music I’ve ever heard.
Badr: It sounds like if Yanni and John Tesh knocked about in the studio for a while. It’s brilliant.
AVC: Do the shows have over-the-top titles like “My Dad Lives In A Downtown Hotel?”
Badr: The title of the one with the drunk mother is called “Francesca, Baby.” The mother is constantly like [Slurring], “Oh, Francesca, baby, you’re my baby. I love you.”
Beeler: There was one I watched called “Beat The Turtle Drum,” and it had absolutely nothing to do with turtles or drums or Indians. It was about a girl who wants a horse and then falls out of a tree. I guess something was lost in the translation.
AVC: Is there any worry about bias on This Week Tonight?
Badr: One of the things we’ve talked about is giving each director a persona, like maybe I’ll pick from only right-wing sources and play it up as if I’m a right-wing blowhard.
Beeler: Or maybe I’ll play a soccer mom character who only cares about news that has to do with children and safety.
Badr: It’s not like we’re going to be presenting all left-wing stuff because we’re in Austin and we’re a bunch of hippies.
AVC: Anything else knocking about in there?
Beeler: Kareem has a huge knockabout.
Badr: If you’re knocking about downtown, and you don’t have anything to do, you should come to the Hideout and knock about upstairs, knock back a few beers and watch a few awesome improvisers knock about onstage.
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