When improv actor Anoo Tree Brod begins a show, she often imagines her audience as a bunch of unlit lightning bugs. By the end of the performance, she said she wants to see their troubles melt away and watch them light up.
Brod is a member of local improv group Danny Canoe, alongside Dan Sipp and Annie Zipper. The group will return to the stage after a four-year hiatus on Saturday, March 23, at 8 p.m. at the ArtsCenter with its performance, “We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat.”
The name of the show has nothing to do with its content. It simply won Brod's Facebook poll to decide the title. True to improv form, the members won't know what they will be performing until they hear the audience suggestions.
The group specializes in long-form improv. The final product is more like an improvised play, Sipp said, rather than the three to five minute performances that audiences are often familiar with.
“We take one suggestion from them and then we use that suggestion to create a 25 to 30 minute piece consisting mainly of comic scenes, that kind of riff on that idea that the audience gave us or characters that we've created in the process,” Sipp said.
The group came together after they each joined the Actors Improv Theater, formerly known as Transactors Company, in Carrboro.
According to Sipp, the three enjoyed working together and always made each other laugh, so they decided to form a separate group. Its name, Danny Canoe, is a combination of the names of the members.
“The chemistry is either there or it's not there, or it's somewhere in between, but it was very much there with us three,” Brod said.
When Brod was in her 20s, improv performing allowed her to break away from social anxiety. At her first improv acting class — with shaky knees and sweaty palms — she said her life changed. Now, Brod teaches improv and team building for corporations.
