Photo: The Third Thought

The Sarasota Improv Festival is celebrating its sixth year this weekend at Florida Studio Theatre, and it’s come a long way in such a short time. Gone are the days of squeezing in shows at odd hours and hunting for available theater time, the festival runs this Friday and Saturday night in two FST theaters and troupes from across the country are slated to perform. The event has near doubled in size these past six years, in no small part due to Florida Studio Theatre managing director Rebecca Hopkins.

“When I started doing improv here, nobody in Sarasota really knew what it was,” said Hopkins, who would create the festival six years later. “I started Improv Fest because Sarasota had been so embracing of improvisation and our group, and I wanted to introduce the community to all the different forms throughout the country.”

This year, more than a dozen troupes will appear at the festival, playing 40-minute sets in either the Goldstein Cabaret or Keating Theatre, with 20-minute breaks between performances for the audience to hit the bars, stretch their legs and chat with fellow festival-goers. Hopkins promises all types of improvisational comedy on display, from longform to shortform, from musical to meta, and with varying levels of audience participation. Ye bold few may find yourselves on stage, and maybe even on trial.

It’s an eclectic ensemble, according to Hopkins, featuring a pedigreed grouping not often seen in one place.

“A lot of our groups aren’t really on the festival ‘circuit,’ so to say. They do festivals, but they’re picky about them,” said Hopkins. “And they love coming to Sarasota because we pack the houses. The audience has gotten more and more improv-savvy every year.”

Though Hopkins insists there can be no real headliner in a festival jam-packed with groups of such caliber, it's the imminent arrival of the New York and LA-based Upright Citizens Brigade that has generated the most chatter. Known for talented alumni such as Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Donald Glover and really almost half of the people starring on improv-comedy TV shows today, UCB will be the only troupe performing in the Gompertz Theatre during the festival.

But the options are vast. Crowd favorite SAK Comedy Lab returns this year, whose work in Orlando Hopkins calls “some of the best stuff in the country,” as does Stacked, the all-female musical improv troupe from Chicago. Newcomers include Villain, out of Improv Olympic, also in Chicago, and North Coast Improv, a New York-based group specializing in hip-hop themed improv.

In a grand finale Saturday night, all of the performers will gather on stage to work together in a massive All Play session.

“You don’t have to dress up. You don’t have to know anything about improv. You just come and be ready to laugh,” said Hopkins. “It’s our job to be entertaining for you, and we’re yet to miss that bar.”

The Sarasota Improv Festival runs tonight and tomorrow night at Florida Studio Theatre. Shows begin at 6pm.

For more information and to purchase tickets for either night or individual shows, visit www.floridastudiotheatre.org/ or call 941-366-9000 for the FST Box Office.

For those interested in learning more about the craft itself, improv workshops will be held most of the day Saturday, before performances begin, in the new home of FST Improv, the Bowne’s Lab. Workshops are ticketed events.

Photo: The Third Thought