Who Does 46 Hours of Comedy Improv Nonstop?

The Hideout Theatre & Coffeeshop has been running this annual improv marathon for six years now, each year adding another hour to the daunting total. Adding another hour because, each time, the previous year’s spectacle didn’t … provide sufficient obliteration of the performers’ grasp of reality?

Last year the marathon ran for 45 hours; and, since they’ll eventually cap the practice at 48 hours – right? – this year’s marathon could be the antepenultimate extension of performative endurance testing.

(Antepenultimate! FTW!)

Note: Last year the Hideout’s Improv Marathon was produced by a guy named Ryan Hill – he’s one of those Fragile Rock people, too – and this year that same Hill’s wrangling it again. Which works out well for your reporter, since I’ve already got an interview with Hill from last year that will serve to background the current situation.

But you should know the basics right now, citizen: You should know that the Hideout is running improv shows this coming weekend, starting at 5pm on Friday, June 19th, and running through Sunday, June 21, at 3pm. To be precise: This means that shows are running nonstop the entire time. Also, note that there’ll be the usual mix of weekend improv goodness that the venue always produces, and a bunch of reprises of classic formats – The Black Vault! Confidence Men! Girls Girls Girls! – and all sorts of things added to fill in the rest of the many late-night and early-morning hours. And the performers will change from show to show, yes – except.

Except, see, and this is the crazy-brilliant gimmick: Eight improvisers will perform in every show during those 46 hours.

Eight improvisers among the dozens of performers cutting loose onstage. Eight improvisers – Cat Drago, Sarah Marie Curry, Mike D'Alonzo(!), Michael Joplin, Courtney Hopkin, Quinn Buckner, Brett Tribe, and Halyn Lee Erickson – who’ll perform and perform and perform and perform, relentlessly, without a drop of sleep.

Which means that, yes, near the end of the marathon, things will be getting downright stoopid on the Hideout’s seasoned stages.

You know: There’ll be maybe a little sloppiness, a little uncontrollable giggling? A little drooling? Maybe even some fainting and so on? We dig this kind of shit, to be honest. And the masochistic eight, they must dig it, too – or else why would they put themselves through such agony?

For your entertainment? For your comedy-craving love?

Well, give them some, won’t you? After all, there are 46 hours to choose among, citizen … unless you have the, ah, the caffeine-enhanced fortitude (and the All Access Pass ) to catch the entire parade of inspired lunacy this weekend.