Editor’s note: The views expressed in I Am So Popular are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the outlook or beliefs of anyone else in the IST network.

Being incredibly popular is really very fun but can also, you know, wear a girl out. Which is why, as you’re reading this, my ass is planted firmly and deeply upon a beach chair in Hawai’i for a week as I rest up and prepare for my next round of popular posts.

But just because I’m away doesn’t mean I can neglect my duties. And so this week, I present an interview with Kareem Badr, one of the four masterminds in the improv troupe Parallelogramophonograph, aka Pgraph . (And yes, you might have noticed, I am running a lot of interviews lately. I love other people’s stories. If there’s someone you want interviewed, drop me a note and I’ll see what I can do.)

I first saw Pgraph perform at the 2008 Frontera Fest. They did a French Farce and, as I detailed here, I just about drenched my pantalones I was laughing so hard.

I have a bit of a history with comedy in Austin. In the early nineties I both covered the comedy beat for the Chronicle and worked at the Velveeta Room on Sixth Street. That gig started with me as a barker, standing on the sidewalk, beseeching drunken revelers to come on in and listen to Open Mic night. I advanced to cocktail waitress and, eventually, manager of the place. I heard some routines so many times I could probably still recite them today.

I even gave standup a shot myself, but that was pre-Austin, and involved much alcohol, and it was in everyone’s best interest that I put a stop to it. But working behind the scenes in comedy (and for that little while onstage), gave me a broader appreciation of the art of the laugh. (It also gave me broader resentment of some people who seemed to think women didn’t deserve a place in comedy, but fuck those fuckers, right?)

Being as popular as I am, I count among my good friends Owen and Jodi Egerton and Les McGehee, some of Austin’s best improv comedians. I attended a workshop of Les’s last year when his show-based-on-his-book Plays Well With Others was playing at Zach. Watching those guys work together to throw spontaneous hilarity out is an amazing thing.

Does improv always go right? Nah. But that’s part of the fun, too. Herewith, Kareem waxes philosophical on what works, what doesn’t, and why he has such great hair.

pgraph

KB: Parallelogramophonograph is Kareem Badr (29), Kaci Beeler (21), Roy Janik(31), and Valerie Ward(26). I've known Roy for close to 10 years. I basically decided I wanted to take improv classes 3 ½ years ago and I dragged Roy along with me. We met Val through the improv community early on when we started taking classes, and we met Kaci through a weekly improv jam that happened at The Hideout in the summer of 2005.

SG: WHO does your hair? It's awesome.

KB: Why thank you. I do it myself...in about 10 seconds. I put this stuff in it (“curling cream” I think it's called) to basically prevent it from being a giant afro. My girlfriend straightened my hair with a chi iron once. I looked like the dude on the cover of Eraserhead.

SG: Tell me about the improv process. Are there tricks?

KB: The process, for us, basically involves a lot of listening and paying attention. Because we primarily focus on telling one 40-45 minute long story, we've all got to be listening to each other and reacting honestly on stage. We really try to avoid any tricks. There are definitely a lot of skills or techniques that we use, though. For example, sometimes we try to start a show with a tableau—a stage picture that forces us to instantly justify who we are and where we're standing. It's a good way of jump-starting a show without having negotiate who everyone is. Honestly, though, all of the techniques we use can be distilled down to simply listening, paying attention, and supporting everything that the players do. If someone walks onto stage with a hunch back, someone else will walk on with a similar posture, or maybe holding a whip, and suddenly we're in a dark coal mine and the story takes off from there.

pgraph

KB: This sounds cheesy, but this is really almost never an issue. There will definitely be times where we have to do a show when one or two of us have had a bad day or a stressful week, but it usually doesn't affect the show negatively. More often than not, it'll help the show or at least make us approach the show with a lot of energy.

SG: Let's say you have this outrageously awesome performance-- the Frontera Fest show comes to mind-- is it sad to let that go?

KB: It's sort of hard to let go of shows, both good and bad. We've gotten better about shaking off shows as soon as they're over, and not beating ourselves up for what we thought was a bad show. As far as good shows, we'll talk about them after for a little bit. But it's never like “Ooh, that thing was good. Let's do that again.” It's more like reminiscing along the lines of “Man, I can't believe you said that.” or “That one mistake turned into a great gift that led the story in this totally unexpected way.” I know there have been some shows where we accidentally start to re-tread some ground that a previous show touched on (it happens from time to time—the consequence of doing almost 150 shows to date) and the result just feels...uninspiring. So our goal, particularly recently, is to actively try to do something we've never done before.

SG: Seriously-- it's ALL improv? I mean, do you have rehearsals?

KB: 100% improvised, I promise. The most we will have, as far as a show concept or premise, will be a specific format or genre that we know we are performing. Like when we did a run of shows that took place in the 1930s, or our After School Improv format, or Improvised French Farce. But even with those shows, we know nothing about the characters or situations until the moment the show starts. We definitely have rehearsals. What they're like generally depends on what goal(s) we're working towards as a troupe. In rehearsal, we usually work on exercises or concepts that will work towards whatever new format or show concept we're planning next. For example, we're currently working on doing a run of shows that focus on villains or anti-heroes. So in rehearsal, we spend some time talking about types of villains and we look for common threads so we know how to accurately tell a story that focuses on a villain.

SG: Tell me about a particularly good night.

KB: It's hard to give a lot of details about the good shows. When it goes well, it's all a blur. When we have a show with a really tight story, we all feel like we had no part in telling it as individuals. The story just happened and we were all following it and doing what naturally had to happen next.

SG: Tell me about a particularly bad night.

KB: Well, we used to have a regular gig at The Carousel Lounge. Some of those shows were a lot of fun, but we had some really bad ones. Barprov... it's not for the weak-of-heart. We've done shows there with only a few people in the audience, and they're all sipping beer and really have no desire to see improv theater. Or they think that because you're doing something funny, that it's stand-up and they can yell things at you randomly. It was just a bad scene all around. Improv isn't something you can really just tune in and out of if you're hanging out at a bar, so barprov usually doesn't work.

SG: What else do you want to tell me.

KB: There’s not much else to say except that we love improvising, and we're constantly aspiring to make our shows more theatrical. We're really trying to do improvised theatre, as opposed to unscripted sketch comedy. We play every Thursday at 8pm at Coldtowne Theater—the villains run is coming right up. We also play regularly as a troupe, and individually as part of other shows, at The Hideout Theater.

Spike Gillespie blogs for Launchpad Coworking and at www.spikeg.com. She is busy this week being popular amongst the coconut and palm trees.