The Upright Citizens Brigade will haul its famed long-form improv style to Iowa City on Friday.

By Claire Dietz
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@claireldietz
Upright Citizens Brigade, a long-form improv troupe whose alumni include Amy Poelher, Kate McKinnon, Jack McBrayer, and Aziz Ansari, will perform at 10 p.m. Friday in the IMU.
Many of the performers involved in Upright Citizens Brigade have hopes to continue on to Hollywood, as many of the group’s alumni have done before them.
“Hollywood has been my dream my whole life,” said Jacob Womack, a performer in the troupe.
When Womack moved to Los Angeles, a friend took him to see a show featuring the troupe, and he knew that he had found his calling.
“I was just blown away,” he said. “I pointed at it and said, ‘That right there is what I want to do.’ I was immediately taking classes and striving toward it, and it took me a while, but I got here.”
When presented with the opportunity to begin touring with Upright, Womack said, he jumped. He loves performing improv for people who may not be as well-versed in the genre as their typical LA audience, he said.
“I love improv, so to do it in any capacity is something I’ll say yes to,” he said. “To do it in front of people who are not as familiar with it, [or are] unable to anticipate the moves as well presents a very cool opportunity to show what we do.”
Another performer, Kale Hills, said that he is amazed by how bringing improv to a city may help the local improv scene flourish, as he had seen in his hometown of Kansas City. Over the years, he said, he has seen improv begin to expand its reach.
“There are comedy fans everywhere,” Hills said. “When I was growing up, there was a short-form improv team and other things, but now that I’ve left, when I go back there is a comedy theater that is performing long form improv.”
The group differs from what most people expect of a typical improv show. It works primarily with long-form improv, as opposed to the more popular shorter form, reminiscent of the skits performed on “Whose Line is It Anyway?”
Womack said that short-form is typically constructed as a game, often with a “revolving door of characters; it’s constructed where you know what to expect next.” Instead, Upright tries to run more complex pieces;
“What we do is we get a word and are often running longer scenes and trying to weave together a 20-minute piece, as opposed to short-form games within a half-hour time frame,” Womack said. “There’s more unexpectedness of where it will go.”
Jake Regal, another performer, often experiences firsthand the unexpectedness of improv when hosting house shows in LA.
“Just last night, someone suggested a five letter word that no one else in the crowd knew what it meant,” Regal said. “The guy said it just to stump us.
“We asked for a definition, and no one still knew what it meant, and we just had to go with it. One of the scenes was about not understanding the word. So not understanding a suggestion can become a foundation for an improv scene.”
The group members said they hope that, above all else, everyone will have fun.
“I hope that we personally embarrass someone,” Regal joked. “I’m kidding. But we do improv inspired by the lives of people in the audience, so they may see a side of themselves they never knew existed.”

Upright Citizens Brigade
When: 10 p.m. Friday
Where: IMU Second-Floor Ballroom
Admission: Free