About that 'improv comedy' hobby ...

For as long as we've been running this blog, there has been that little line on my bio that lists "improv comedy" as my hobby. I figured I ought to finally explain that, especially since my history as an improvisational comedian in Green Bay recently has been weaving more than ever into my seminary life in the Twin Cities.

When I was in middle school, I became aware of a comedy club, then called ComedySportz, in downtown Green Bay. It was a place for family-friendly improv, which, unlike stand-up, involves groups of comedians using audience suggestions to perform spur-of-the-moment skits and various other activities that for one reason or another end up being funny. I was initially amused by these folks but never considered this sort of performing to be within the scope of my abilities until a friend, also named Andy (he was more recently my best man when I got married), attended a meeting of the comedy club's High School League in 1996, our freshman year. I followed Andy to the High School League's next session the following week and soon met a number of people who have been some of my best friends ever since.

Even after Andy moved on to other things, I stuck with the league throughout my high school years and performed Saturday shows for various friends and parents. Sometimes the shows were even funny. I got my big break in the fall of my junior year when the "professionals" (I use quote marks because the pay was never really a career-maker) were short on players one night and invited me to join them. Shortly after, I began a period of my life in which almost every Friday and Saturday night involved hours of performance and after-show gatherings with the comedy troupe, which in 2000 became ComedyCity when our owners determined to expand from the ComedySportz franchise. The club is now located in De Pere, Wis., just outside Green Bay, and is paired with Venture Theatre, a venue for original plays.

My existence as an improvisational comedian brought me not only some of my best friends but also some of my most unforgettable experiences. Among them: the 1999 around-the-clock comedy marathon in which, after a municipally enforced closing time, a gritty bunch of us performed in the cold, outside the nearby mall's food court, for a group of dedicated audience members; and in 2000, the trip to the Twin Cities when a group of us were mistakenly booked for a show at UW-Eau Claire a night early and spent the next day at the Mall of America, where my friend proceeded to throw up at Knott's Camp Snoopy (apparently from food poisoning, not a roller coaster). I even got to perform in 2002 for an assembly of my ELCA synod and thankfully did not embarrass myself too badly to ruin my candidacy for seminary four years later.

In fact, when I got my call and finally determined to become a pastor, members of my candidacy committee identified my experience with improv as one of my strongest tools for ministry — and not because of our troupe's improv game in which we portray dueling preachers who are unprepared for their sermons. In my years at ComedyCity, I got used to being in front of crowds, developed my sense of humor, learned how to work with others while embracing the unknown and jumped openly into situations for which I was totally unprepared. (That also came in handy last week in a rare opportunity to perform an impromptu skit in a Luther Seminary course, not to say that I didn't get especially nervous before an audience of peers.) After a recent discussion at Luther with my adviser and other classmates, I have developed a goal to one day as a pastor use my improv experience to welcome conversation from parishioners about each week's Scripture readings and immediately adapt my preaching to address their perspectives and concerns. Someday.

And it's always a blessing to make people laugh. Although I'm certainly not as sharp as I used to be when I was playing week in and week out, I still love to perform whenever I'm visiting Green Bay (the photo above is from a show last month). I'm still involved from a distance in planning for this year's 28-Hour Marathon of Comedy on March 30-31 to benefit two Green Bay-area charities serving children with cancer and their families. Last year, when some teammates and I revived the traditional marathon, the event raised more than $3,850 for the two charities. This year, we're shooting for $5,000.

What's all the more exciting are the sometimes unexplainable ways that my connections to ComedyCity have tied into my life as a seminarian. I mentioned in a previous blog how I last fall bumped into a former teammate from the troupe at a Packers-fan-friendly sports bar in St. Paul and learned he, too, moved here for the sake of the ministry, and how I few days later learned that the seminary journal, the Concord, had published a photo taken by another ComedyCity teammate.

Last night, fate struck again when my old friend and ComedyCity teammate, Kate, visiting from northeast of Green Bay, met my wife, Tracy, and me for coffee at Har Mar Mall, not far from the seminary. A classmate from Luther named Joe walked up to our table. I introduced him to my wife and started to introduce him to Kate when, remarkably, it became clear that the two already knew each other. Turns out they had worked together a few years ago when Kate was working at the Joe's parents' coffee shop in the Twin Cities. In fact, one of the reasons Kate was visiting Minnesota this weekend was because she wanted to visit Joe's dad. Not only did the chance encounter give Kate advance notice that his dad no longer lived in town, but it prompted us all to sit down for dinner. It was amazing enough that one of my friends from the comedy troupe knew one of my seminary classmates and all the more amazing that the two of them and Tracy and I happened to be at the same place and at the same time.

God really must have a sense of humor.