A couple years ago, Doug Montoya, who runs the Box Performance Space with a partner, noticed people would promise to come watch the improv show the following weekend. Most of them never did, yet they kept promising.
"I'll definitely make it next weekend!" they would say.
So Montoya had an idea. Instead of doing improv once a week, why not do it for a month, every year? Thus was born the Duke City Improv Festival.
Last year, the festival played to a packed house, and this year, it's even bigger.
It kicks off Friday at 7 p.m. and runs for two weekends, with a closing party after the last performance on the 20th. There are four shows per night, except on Sunday.
"It's a great opportunity for people to see something that their city has, that they may not have known existed," said Alex Knight of the improv group The One Night Stanleys.
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Montoya said he hopes the festival continues annually. Even though the Box has gone back to a more frequent performance schedule since last year, the festival affords an opportunity to give Albuquerque improv a yearly shot in the arm, both from exposure to the public and the ability to draw in improv groups from out of state.
Most of the troupes participating are from Albuquerque, but out of the 12 teams this year, three of them are from other states - New Yorkers Josh and Tamra, whose puppeteering antics have been featured on the Conan O'Brien show, as well as Phoenix's improv music group The Remainders and San Francisco's self described "modern wrestling martial clown artists," a group called Rover Hendrix.
The show also includes a couple of children's improv teams, ranging from elementary to high school. One of them is The Gryfinndorks.
"These guys are sharp," Montoya said. "They're really intelligent. They do intelligent improv, and they're really surprising when you watch them."
Many of the kids who have participated in the children's teams have grown up on improv, and some of them have continued on into adulthood.
Some of the other teams formed at other theaters. Knight got into the improv scene when the old Gorilla Tango comedy theater put out a general call for people to do improv. It was at that open call that Knight met Montoya. Knight said very few people in Albuquerque's improv scene have any formal training but what little there is came from an instructor at Gorilla Tango. Other than that, almost everyone is self-taught.
Most importantly it should be fun, Montoya said, and it doesn't work if the players are unfriendly toward each other.
Montoya has a philosophy on improv: "The best scenes are the ones where people are supportive of one another."
He said a good improv team can create a connection to the audience that other types of theater lack. The comedy that results is made all the more funny by the fact that the audience gets to participate.
"I don't think it's a well-known scene," Knight said. "But it's good that people hear about it." Doug Montoya said he hopes the second annual Duke City Improv Festival will change that and open the door for more festivals.
Shows run the next two Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and this Sunday at 6 p.m. The cost is $6 per show or $40 for an unlimited festival pass.
