[New Austinist contributor Eric Seufert will be covering the Out of Bounds festival all week! -Ed.]

Today marks the start of the sixth Out of Bounds festival—a nationally-acclaimed improv festival taking place right here in Austin. One of the acts performing in the inaugural show at The Hideout tonight is veteran sketch-troupe Hoover’s Blanket. We were able to catch up with Chris Allen, Andy Pereira, and Bryan Roberts after a rehearsal to discuss their show.

Your show on Wednesday is essentially a best-of Hoover’s blanket for ’07?

Chris Allen: For the past year—since last OoB—we’ve had Existentialism, Rivals, the 4/20 show, and Consumption, so it’s the best of those four shows over the past year.

What we did was, we had about a 30-40 minute show slow, so we laid out the different sketches that we really liked from previous shows and then we voted and picked the cream of the crop. We jammed them all together and in creating a “box” for the show—a thematic thread or whatever...

Bryan Roberts: ...a through-line...

CA: ...a through-line. We were holding off on creating the thing that would tie it all together because we had submitted something to the OoBenanny auction: The highest bidder gets to submit a piece for the show and also have a cameo in the show.

Well, Robin Goodfellow won—of the duo Buddy Daddy. Robin Goodfellow is...some kind of dog. What kind of dog is it?

I think it’s a dachshund mix.

BR: Yeah, it’s a dachshund and something else.

CA: So Robin paid ten bucks to participate in our show. So then we figured out what the show was going to be about—it’s a dog’s dream. That’s our box.

BR: The through-line is that the dog is dreaming. And interesting things will happen.

How long has Hoover’s Blanket been around? It’s been around for quite a while, right?

CA: Do you remember when it formed?

Andy Pereira: Probably over two years ago. I think it was July two years ago.

CA: July two years ago was when we put on our first show. Just over two years. And this is our 11th show.

What are the best things about Out of Bounds from a performer’s point of view?

CA: Feedback. Feedback and sharing. People see your show and it’s not just the jingoistic, “Hey, you were great, I liked your stuff.” But somebody sees your show and then you can talk to them and say, “What do you think we could have done even better?”

It’s a really loving fest. People really love coming to OoB because they feel so welcomed here in Austin. We’ve got so many volunteers, and everyone’s friendly and everyone gets along. I think it’s the feedback. And the parties.

BR: I totally enjoy the networking. I remember last year, one of my favourite moments was seeing the Edmond Bulldogs show—they’re Backpack Picnic now, but they were the Edmond Bulldogs last year. Just being able to have a conversation with them about sketch and the different ways to do it and what you can do with the form. That’s what I enjoy. Just getting together with your contemporaries and having these discussions about the creative stuff that you do.

CA: You’ve got people from all over—from Chicago, New York, LA, Florida—that are doing this professionally. And they’re accessible here. You can take workshops with them and then you can chit-chat with them at the different parties. So if you’re interested in doing this in a professional sense, you’ve got people here doing it professionally to get advice from.

Is it weird performing sketch in Out of Bounds as opposed to improv? Being surrounded by a majority of improvisers?

CA: I don’t think so because a lot of people also do sketch or have dabbled in sketch.

BR: There’s such a close relationship between improv and sketch. One of the main philosophies of improv is that it can be used as fodder for sketch comedy where sketch comedy is the end result and improv is the clay that you’re working with. To make a sketch sculpture.

CA: I totally agree. Sketch has helped my improv and improv has helped my sketch. If you want really solid improv, you want to have a thread of something happening. It’s funny—the sketch, which is more controlled, helps your improv in keeping a little bit of control, whereas the improv helps your sketch in coming up with the ideas.

AP: It’s about variety. Not only do you have different types of improv troupes, you also have different types of sketch shows. Some, like Bryan said, came from doing improv, and some were just written as pure sketch.

If someone came up to you and told you that they were completely new to live comedy—they were a first-time audience member for any type of live comedy show—and they wanted your recommendation for a show to see that night. Would you recommend that they see an improve show or a sketch show.

CA: That’s a really tough question. I would want to ask them a few more questions, obviously. I would ask them what they like. I would probably recommend a troupe that was not too crazy, too high-energy. I guess I would have to ask them what they like.

They like Dane Cook and they’re from Detroit.

AP: Stay in Detroit.

CA: I would recommend them seeing improv. I know locally we’ve got Tight, Coldtowne, Girls, Girls, Girls, Parallelogramophonograph—I would tell them to go see one of those groups knowing that one of the other groups in that [Out of Bounds time] block is from out of town. So you probably are going to get some variety.

And then I would tell them if they had a chance to see sketch, go see sketch. But I would say see improve first.

BR: That’s the great thing about the festival—there are so many days and you have so many blocks to choose from. So you can go see a Chicago-style block and then go see a San Francisco-style block. And then go see a straight-up sketch block like the one we have with You’re Fat on Wednesday. Backpack Picnic and Good Neighbor is a sketch block. And then the improv blocks are kind of stylistically matched up.

CA: If I had an opportunity to speak to Person X a little bit longer, I would ask them what they really like and what they wanted to get out of this. Do you like SNL? Go see some sketch. Do you want to see some sketch-like improv? Go see the Frank Mills or Coldtowne. Because they can do an entire show in a scene that’s funny as hell and it’s not the crazy, rambunctious improv.

And that’s the cool thing about this festival. In any good festival, you should be able to see a lot of great stuff but have to miss a lot of stuff that’s great because there’s too much good stuff going on. And that happens at Out of Bounds.

The Out of Bounds Festival
The Hideout Theatre [map]

Today's Progamming:
8PM Downstairs:
Look Cookie (Austin improv)
The Leading Brands (Austin improv)
You, Me & Greg (Austin improv)
[Tickets]

8PM Upstairs
You’re Fat (Austin/NYC sketch)
Hoover’s Blanket (Austin sketch)
[Tickets]