Out of Bounds Interview Series: The Trip Fives

Had you heard anything about Austin improv before coming here?

Yeah, we’ve been keeping track of Out of Bounds. One of our members actually graduated from UT, so she was familiar with the festival and everything that’s been going on down here for the last few years.

What’s the improv scene in Kansas City like?

It’s grown steadily over the last five or six years. It kind of went into remission for a while. Ten years ago we actually had the longest-running comedy festival in the country. That went away, and the scene kind of died for a while, but now it has been revitalized. We have our own community, we have our own non-profit organization kind of like your Austin group. So it’s been really exciting to watch. We had a festival earlier this year and we’ll be having another one again in September, so things are going well.

Being kind of like an ancillary city for improv, do you see a lot of improvisers get introduced to the craft in Kansas City and then move away to the bigger training centers?

To a certain extent. If you’re going to go to Chicago or New York, you clearly want to make improv a focal point of your life. We have some people like that. But like I said, the improv scene in Kansas City is new in its beginnings. We’ve had people from Second City Detroit move to Kansas City, we’ve had a lot of experience working with directors from Chicago, so there are a lot of Chicago influences in Kansas City.

In fact, the non-profit organization that unites Kansas City’s improv community is called City 3. Because we’re not New York, we’re not Chicago, but we think that Kansas City is the next big up-and-coming improv market.

What’d you think of the show tonight?

I enjoyed the Silver City Pink girls. I thought that they had a nice structure and a nice format. I liked how the introduced the monologues to begin the show and then built upon that with different scenes and then ultimately fell into a crescendo of different ideas that they had explored earlier in the show.

Are you taking any classes while you’re here?

I tried to take Razowski’s class but, sadly, it was sold out. I’m trying to, we’ll put it that way. I’m looking for classes to take.

What act are you most looking forward to seeing while you’re here?

The showcase on Sunday night. The people that get chosen for the showcase are obviously the ones that have been doing this for a long-enough period of time that they’ve really honed their craft. It’s great to see people that are at the top of their game perform.

You mentioned trying to get into Dave Razowski’s class; have you seen Razowski & Clifford before?

No, so I’m really excited to see that.

If you had to sell someone on your show—if they were trying to decide on one block to come see and you had to sell them on your block, what would you tell them?

I’d tell them that our show is an improvised one-act play. We take one suggestion from the audience, we introduce a series of characters to it, and we go from there. There is on rotating basis of characters; everyone is just their character throughout the entire piece. It really gives the audience a way to connect to the individual characters. I think we are a little bit different than what other groups are doing.

The Out of Bounds Festival
The Hideout Theatre [map]

Today's Progamming:
8PM Downstairs:
Girls Girls Girls (Austin)
88improv (Austin)
[Tickets]

8PM Upstairs
Parallelogramophonograph (Austin)
Cathcart & Olson (Chicago)
[Tickets]

10PM Downstairs:
Edmond Bulldogs [Backpack Picnic] (LA/Austin)
Good Neighbor (LA)
[Tickets]

10PM Upstairs:
The Trip Fives (Kansas City)
Pavlov's Dogs (Dallas)
[Tickets]

Midnight Downstairs:
ALL-STAR Micetro
[Tickets]