Colin Mochrie, Brad Sherwood Bringing Improv To Honeywell Center
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Eight years after “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”, Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood are still having fun with live improv. “It was a lot of fun. We liked to perform in front of people and make them laugh,” said Sherwood during a telephone interview Nov. 22. Mochrie and Sherwood bring their comedy improv to the Honeywell Center, Wabash, Dec. 9 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $19, $34, $48 and $75. “I started in theater at 8, so I’ve always been a performer. I always liked to make people laugh,” Sherwood said. When he moved out to Los Angeles, Calif., he took an improv class, and found he liked it. He kept doing it, performing with different people and groups like Second City. “I prefer not having a script personally,” Sherwood said. “We like to be challenged. We always want to challenge ourselves, we want to make it difficult on ourselves. We have people come on the stage, and we’re always looking for new ways to ask for information so we don’t get in a rut.” For improv, Sherwood said the number of people you need always depends on the game you are playing. You need two people to talk to each other for the basic building blocks of improv. You can have more people, he said, but too many almost has everyone tripping over each other with their ideas. For shows like at the Honeywell Center, Sherwood said, they’re going to play games like people saw on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and some games Sherwood and Mochrie came up with themselves while out on the road. “It’s so fun. It’s more interactive than you saw on ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’” he said. “It’s just a wild, unpredictable improv show.” Sherwood said performing improv on the stage is more fun than being in the audience. “(‘Whose Line’) was the greatest show, that’s why Colin and I still do it on the road eight years later,” Sherwood said. They don’t plan to stop any time soon either. “This is still a long-term plan,” Sherwood said. “We both like going out and doing this live.” Along with some of their friends from “Whose Line” and Fred Willard, Sherwood said they shot eight episodes of a new show titled “Trust Us With Your Life” for ABC. It will air around January or February.In the show, Sherwood said, Willard interviews guests, and then the improv actors reenact stories the guests tell. It will be completely improvised. Mochrie and Sherwood do have a DVD out right now titled “Colin and Brad: Two Man Group”. It is their live show taped in Milwaukee, Wis. For more on Mochrie and Sherwood, visit their website at: colinandbradshow.com For the Honeywell Center, visit: www.honeywellcenter.com
