{image1}"It's amazing! Because the people who first take improvisation --or 'improv'--see it like a religion once they actually do it."

That's Dick Chudnow, lead originator of ComedySportz, speaking. "'Cause there's something else guiding you. You have no memorized lines like an actor with his script. You can think fast but you can't write as fast as you think. It's just not possible. So you put your mind on 'automatic' and let something else take you along."

In its new location at 420 S. First St., ComedySportz celebrates its 20th anniversary with an annual competition -- but not just ANY annual competition. This year's competition is -- trumpets, ready? - INTERNATIONAL! Ta dah!

To ComedySportz companies from both of our East and West Coasts are added some from the South and Midwest. Only this year the best teams from Dublin, Ireland and Chorley (outside of Manchester), England are also included. Four days only, starting Wednesday, Aug. 4 through Saturday, Aug. 7. Two entirely different shows a night, one at 7:30 and the second at 10 with four teams competing in each show.

But what EXACTLY is ComedySportz?

"I've been trying to explain it for 20 years and I've never been really able to," Chudnow relates. "When I try to tell people, they go, 'Oh, yeah. I get it.' And then once they come, they see it and go, 'Oh, that was --. I had no idea.'"

Huh?

"It's competitive team improvisation. But that doesn't mean anything."

Actually finding its roots in Theatresports in Branford, a town outside of Toronto, Chudnow modified the original Canadian concept and applied comedy with a sports motif.

First off it's a verbal game handled in a sports milieu. There are two teams of improvisational "athletes," in uniform, generally five per team. There is a referee. There is no "stage," only a "field with markings." Each game (any one of over 100 at this point) pits Chicago vs. Los Angeles or Eugene, Ore. vs. Philadelphia. Milwaukee's team takes on Houston at Thursday's early show.

There is a time limit; so it's beat the clock as well. Also, as in regular sports' games, there are penalties. There are offsides. There's a groaner foul. "If somebody says something that makes the audience groan, they have to step in the Apology Box and apologize. The audience can accept it and they don't lose a point. Audience doesn't accept it? The team loses a point. We even got a potty-mouth foul," Chudnow says. Such words are infrequent but they will happen.

"Right from the start," Chudnow elaborates, "when we began 19 years ago in the back room of Kalt's Restaurant over on Oakland ... it's Italian now. Right from that very first night I wanted a show I could invite my mom to see and I didn't want to be embarrassed. So we make our shows as family-oriented as we possibly can. But occasionally --?" No player likes to be yoked with a toilet seat which is the penalty for loose lips and therefore players hold themselves in check. No "f---" and "s---" words, please.

"Sportz" is the second half of its name, "Comedy" precedes it. "Oh, yeah, the competition is real enough," Chudnow assures. "But at the same time, we've got to make the audience laugh." For each show there are three independent judges who will determine the success or failure of the teams. The first panel for opening night includes: Bo Black, Art Kumbalek and theater critic Damien Jaques.

Ideally, the audience is never merely lumped together as "spectators. We like and we seek audience participation," Chudnow says. Of course, not everyone can be included at each performance but the players like to use the game of Blindline, for example. For this, while the teams are "off in the locker room," some audience members get to write a line -- it can be anything: headline, joke punchline, poetry -- on slips of paper. Then the teams are called back in.

"We start a scene based on the audience's suggestion," Chudnow explains, "and during the scene -- at any time -- we can pick up one of those pieces of paper. We have to say what it says and justify that line in the context of the scene. That keeps on going for three minutes and then the judges vote which team was the funniest."

Sometimes an audience member is asked to join the players "on the field." One night the volunteer turned out to be Robin Williams. "He's insane. He is. But like most comedians, he likes to go to clubs and work out. He played a whole half a show. He was into everything. You can't get anything by him. Whatever you say, he picks up on that and then he'll go off. He's got this ear and he listens. And that's what good improv should be. You should listen."

And how about Chudnow himself? Any specific recall of something memorable that happened during a show?

After 20 years and thousands and thousands of performances, the challenged combatant took considerable pains for one of the most unforgettable moments.

"We vend," he starts with. "'Peanuts. Get your hot roasted peanuts,' okay? 'Pennants. Get your team pennants,' etc. We vend. Anyway, as the performances progress, we come out with weird stuff. Remember that auto sticker, 'Baby on Board'? We nailed a Barbie doll to a board and hawked, "Get your baby on board,' you know? A lot of puns like that."

At this point Chudnow got serious.

"I had a stick and I put raw liver on it. 'Liver on a stick. Get your liver on a stick.' And one week I put it in the office and forgot about it. The next weekend I found this green liver in the container that I forgot to refrigerate. 'Yech, that looks interesting,' I said to myself. So I put it on the stick and I'm walking around with this green, awful-looking liver and people are groaning and this guy tilts his head back, opens his mouth, and I slowly lowered this liver down and I wasn't going to put it in his mouth or anything. But he sat up and took a bite out of it!"

That's the night the audience turned an unforgettable green.