Austinist Interviews: Producers of Out of Bounds 2007

Do you think the growth of the festival has mirrored the growth of improv in Austin? Would a festival of this size be feasible without the community here having grown from even what it was last year?

SM: I think that’s almost a chicken and the egg question. Well, maybe not a chicken and the egg—maybe it’s like a feedback loop. I think the more exciting and successful the festival has gotten, it has inspired more people to get involved in improv or stay in Austin to keep doing improv. That kind of community stays here and keeps adding and growing. Before Out of Bounds, people would come and do improv, and they’d get tired of it and they’d leave the scene or they’d be really good and go somewhere else. And now it feels like people stick around. So the festival has grown because of the scene, but we’ve also been making the scene grow.

JL: I totally agree. I think Austin itself is kind of a unique big festival town. It’s kind of becoming a festival town with things like SXSW and ACL. And Eeyore’s birthday.

People come in from all over the world to come to these festivals, so we’re hoping that Out of Bounds can catch up to that and get more international acts. Austin’s already on the map—you wouldn’t say that you want to put Austin on the map. But we’re trying to put the Austin improv community on the map.

We’re trying to build it up as a place where people want to come to train. And there are any number of places in Austin that they can train. People kind of consider—if you live somewhere other than Chicago, LA, or New York and you’re into improv and you’re looking for a place to go train, it’s going to be one of those three. But we’re trying to make it so that we’re the Southern choice. If you don’t like nasty winters or blondes with big breasts, you can come to Austin.

SM: Not that we have anything against blondes with big breasts.

When you compare Out of Bounds to SXSW, when do you think the general, non-improv-savvy public will view it as a way to catch the next big comedian? In the same way that you go to SXSW to see the next big band before they’re big? Is it contingent on the Austin scene getting to the point where we’re in the same place as LA, New York, or Chicago? Or is the festival itself becoming big enough that it attracts the next big Saturday Night Live star?

JL: Well, I, myself, am going to be extremely famous in three years. Then people will start to sit up and take notice.

But I think the reason that people see SXSW as a place where you can see the next big thing is because that’s happened. Before you know that a group’s going to be famous, they get discovered the same year that you’re watching them—and before you know it, they’re Hanson. And you’re like, “Oh my God. Hanson was discovered at SXSW.”

SM: Was Hanson discovered at SXSW?

JL: Yes. I know too much about the band Hanson. But anyway.

You can’t really get that reputation before it happens. But I think that it’s definitely a possibility, just because of the huge load of talent that is present in Austin and because of the huge loads of talent that come to the festivals. We’ve got people who are getting brushes with fame and good, paying gigs from LA and Chicago. Or even Austin. So I think it’s natural that the pace of the way it’s grown—it’s in the sixth year; I don’t know how long SXSW had been happening, I think it started in the early 90’s, but it had been around for a while before it got that reputation.

I think it’s just a matter of consistently putting on a good festival every year, having good acts, treating the performers well, having a great staff, and it’s kind of inevitable.

SM: I think that it hasn’t happened yet, but I think it’s going to happen. Somebody is going to get discovered here and, SXSW-style, Out of Bounds is going to have that kind of reputation attached to it. Or, if it doesn’t, I’m perfectly fine running a very successful, medium-sized festival. We’re not the hugest comedy festival out there, but we’re also not small.

JL: We don’t pay network people or executives or agents to come out and scout for talent. And that would be a big step in the direction of trying to have people discovered. Because those douchebags are crawling all over SXSW. The Big Stinkin’ Festival used to be in Austin and they had agents and people from BET and Comedy Central and Fox coming in and scouting for talent.

Maybe eventually we’ll be at the point where we want to do that. But we’ve got a really nice stew and we don’t want to throw in too much cayenne. We don’t want to spoil the whole stew. So we’re just kind of letting those things happen naturally.

SM: We’d rather, at this point, grow in the way that those people come to us. The scouts and the agents and that kind of stuff. Let them come to us and we can set the terms under which the festival happens—we’re not catering to them. But I should also say that right now, it’s like an untapped resource. I know agents and talent scouts that are always looking to get in and manage the people around them. And if somebody’s savvy, they would come down here and sort of be ahead of the curve.

Casual fans of improv in Austin may not realize that some big names are coming to the festival—more and more every year. How do you convince people within the Austin community to come to shows? I feel like there are a lot of people that have seen exactly one improv show and never gone again because everyone in that show was Robocop the whole time or something. How do you convince those people that they’re not going to see that zany, freshman-year-in-college improv show—that they’re going to see people that have mastered the craft?

SM: They may still see some all-Robocop shows.

JL: We do have that all-robot troupe from Detroit.

SM: ProvBot.

JL: That’s right.

SM: The people that have seen one improv show and have said they’ll never come back…

JL: That’s like seeing one band and swearing off live music.

SM: Obviously it’s just a question of music being more of a known thing. If I saw a crappy band, it doesn’t mean I hate bands or music. But improv doesn’t have that same level of understanding or acknowledgement in the wider community. And it’s one of those things—we’ve never had an honest-to-God celebrity. But we have had people that are well-known and very well-regarded in the circle of people across the country that do improv comedy. And we’ve never booked anybody that’s like Joe Schmo that doesn’t know anything about improv comedy, either.

So I would say trust our track-record and our history of continuing to grow and bring people in. The people that are performing know what they’re doing.

JL: Improv itself has been dealing with this stigma of the general public seeing this like they see Whose Line is it Anyway just because that’s what they’re familiar with. They’ve seen it on TV for so many years. During the 80’s and a lot of the 90’s, that was what was performed live as all short-form in clubs. So to try to convince people that it has evolved into this other form that’s still funny—if not funnier—and more interesting and more engaging and more truthful is difficult. You can’t put that on a poster—you can’t put that on a postcard.

So it’s kind of an uphill battle to try to keep people in there and convince them that they need to be there and they’re going to enjoy it. And once they’re there, you hook them with the good shit. We could bring in a huge celebrity, but if they’re not any good at performing live, it doesn’t do any good. And it costs us a shitload of money.

If they put on a crappy show, the audience leaves saying, “I juts paid $15 to see that show because I thought it would be cool. And it was cool to see Chevy Chase, but he can’t do improv anymore.”

SM: “That guy’s back really hurts him.”

JL: “I loved the way he fell down the Christmas tree at the beginning of the show. That was cool.”

But we bring good talent. And as we grow and have more money, we’ll try to bring good talent that actually have names.

SM: And more and more, the quality of improv in Austin is such that there are fewer and fewer shows where people leave the theater saying, “I’m never going back to see improv again.” And there are fewer shows of only pirates and monkeys or whatever.

What would it take for Out of Bounds to be the festival destination for…not even necessarily a big-name troupe? But troupes graduating from schools all across the country wanting first and foremost to go to Out of Bounds—what is the timeline for that kind of achievement?

JL: I don’t know. Huge in the improv world is word-of-mouth and street-cred, and we’re slowly building that.

SM: I can say that I don’t know if we’re ever going to be the number one point for everyone to ever want to come to. Chicago is the crown jewel of the festival circuit right now in-so-far-as it’s where so many developments within the history of improvisational comedy happen. And there are so many people doing it and it’s such a bigger city than Austin. To be honest, I don’t think we’re ever going to be at a point where we’re rushing CIF in their ability to bring people into town.

JL: I think the biggest festival in North America—maybe not Just for Laughs in Canada—is the Aspen fest in Colorado. And that festival is all about being discovered. The agents and the scouts, all those people go to Aspen to see these showcases of stand-ups and some improv and some sketch—that’s the whole purpose of that festival. And I don’t know that I would enjoy that festival very much. It would feel more like a trade show than it would feel like hanging out with like-minded people and putting on good shows. Which is what I really care about.

So I think that every festival can have its own niche and its own feel to it and still be alright.

Out of Bounds 2007
August 28 - September 3
The Hideout / Esther's Pool / UT Campus

[Tickets]