Scriptless In Chicago
Improv group takes show to the streets at Daley Plaza
By Celia Stevaux

Available Cupholders held an hour-long improv session outside the Daley Center.
A group of people forms around a cluster of indiscriminate young men at the base of the red Picasso horse that sits famously outside the Daley Center at 50 W. Washington St. on Saturday, August 27, for the final installment of "A Week In Weird Places," a series of improvised comedy shows performed in unusual places.
They then spend the next hour creating a montage of life snippets through acted scenes. They are the Available Cupholders, and in their final episode of "A Week In Weird Places," they touch upon myriad subjects between prosthetic third arms (now sold in possessed form) to the secret of the universe (duct tape). The entire hour is completely unscripted, and their props are not restricted to just their bodies; they incorporate passersby, the sculpture, and even a nearby fountain into their scenes.
The Available Cupholders is an improv troupe seeking to tweak and expand improvisational comedy. Their show isn't the short-form type made popular by the British TV show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Rather, they performed a long-form show wherein troupe members build off each other's lines and physical positions to transition smoothly from scene to scene. It gives the show a distinctly evolutionary feel as the audience can see the development of comedy unfold before its very eyes.
Comprised of Ace Manning, Bill Stern, Jeremy Lamb, Jon Benner, and Michael Joplin, the Cupholders have known each other since high school, where they met and began their foray into the world of improvised comedy in Austin, Texas. All of the members of the Cupholders are between the ages of 22 and 26 (and each a year apart). Most of the boys have had theatrical experience; a couple of them have even been in other troupes. They always come back to each other, though, and while acting with other people, Jeremy would help his friends by taking back what he had learned from other troupes.
When they couldn't get booked at an indoor venue a few years ago, the Available Cuphoders took matters into their own hands, and the random-location show was born. They asked themselves, Lamb recounts, "Why do we even have to be in a theatre?" Since then, the Available Cupholders have put on shows on city buses, in vans, and even in a river. "They are extremely fun," Manning says of the outdoor improv shows. Just as he finishes speaking, an ambulance flies down Dearborn Street, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Lamb gestures and shrugs, adding, "And challenging!" Ace continues, saying, "Out here, you get amazing gifts-freakish things happen."
The most uncommon place at which the troupe had performed was a when they performed a show in a river. "There was a duck behind us, swimming," Lamb said. "Suddenly, another duck swooped down and we realized it was trying to have sex with it...everyone just spent the next five minutes watching the ducks because we just could not do anything funnier than watch ducks have sex." The guys laugh, and Joplin offers a major difference between "normal" stage improv and the outdoor shows: "In a theatre, on a stage, a lot of it is much more subtle...simple facial expressions [do a lot more] in a theatre." Adding to that, Benner quickly says, "It's good training for us, though."
The boys all enjoy attending other troupes' shows and events; though Available Cupholders tours campuses across the nation performing shows, they are ever-ready to learn from others. Among the Chicago locales they enjoy attending are The Globe on Irving Park Rd, the Improv Kitchen, the Improv Olympic, and the Chicago Improv Festival, which takes place in late April. Manning says they especially love going to improv festivals. "[We] pick up so much stuff from being around other people." Stern adds, "There are tons of classes to take if you're interested in doing improv," "Yeah," says Benner, "Chicago is a hotbed of where you go to get schooled [in improv]."
Some of the things the guys suggest for a beginning improv performer is to "get back in touch with your imagination. That's the starting point...[you have to] not feel silly about it. Little kids use their imagination all the time." Lamb emphasizes a need to be fearless; saying that one of the most important things is, "not being afraid to fail...[even if I mess up,] I have to ignore the fact that I failed."
All five Cupholders live in the Chicago area and supplement their improv habits with part-time jobs.