If you go…
What: a performance by area improv group, the Funkin’ Wassels
When: Friday, Oct. 12 and Saturday, Oct. 13 at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Where: The Walworth County Performing Arts Center, 15 W. Walworth St.
Cost: Tickets are $10 at the door, with proceeds benefiting the Lakeland Players.
Local improv group sets show to benefit Lakeland Players
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff writer
If you listen to the explanation of how the improv group “Funkin’ Wassels” got their name, you can definitely understand the group’s motto: “No Script? No Set? No Problem.”
Playing one of numerous games during the group’s first show, member Dan Casey got a contribution from the audience he just could not read.
“Dan was given ‘Funk and Wagnalls,” communications director Frank Korb said, explaining it was an American publisher of dictionaries. “He couldn’t read it. What he thought it said was ‘Funkin’ Wassels.’”
“And the name kind of just got picked up then.”
Since its original auditions late last summer, the group has evolved to include Korb, Dan Casey, Rob King, Don Fresen, Morgan Sisson, Marion Araujo, Bill Corey, Rachel McLafferty and Deb Davis.
Davis serves as the group’s producer, while Corey originally founded the group and has served mainly as its Master of Ceremonies.
The group will perform next Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Walworth County Performing Arts Center Sprague Theatre in Elkhorn as a fundraiser for the Lakeland Players. Tickets are $10 at the door.
The upcoming performance will mark the second time the group has entertained audiences from inside Elkhorn’s historic theater. They made their debut here in March.
Korb said he and the other performers, who are used to taking the stage at Burlington’s Malthouse Theater, also love the nostalgia of the Sprague.
“There’s so much history there, it’s really a focal point in that Square,” Korb said.
Those who come out for the show, Korb promises, can expect “absolute craziness, and zaniness.”
“Expect to be put on the spot to come up with all the scenarios,” Korb said. “We come in with specific games in mind, and throw out ideas.
“We hope the audience comes up with great ideas for us to entertain them,” he added.
The troupe is roughly sketched around the television show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” with games like “Moving People,” “Scripts,” “Questions Only” and “Party Quirks.”
The latter involves getting a character attending a party with an odd characteristic – say a ballerina who has lost her balance. One member plays the party host, and has to guess what that trait is.
“Moving People,” meanwhile, involves troupe members who can’t move unless the audience participants can clue in to move them as they are working through the game.
It turns into some contortions sometimes, Korb admitted.
“I’m flexible, but I’m only so flexible,” he said.
All the games require quick minds, plenty of humor and a “fly by the seat of your pants” demeanor.
“It’s really come a long ways,” said Korb. “There’s a lot more to improv than just getting up on stage and saying the first thing that comes to mind.”
And what was once publicized only for mature audiences only is now acceptable for the entire family, according to Korb.
“We started ‘mature audiences only’,” he explained, “but there’s this line that can be drawn, and it’s funny when we dance to that line.
“We let the audiences’ dirty minds take them to where they want to, it’s more fun that way… if we can play up to that line and not cross it…”
For more information, visit funkinwassels.com.
