Street roots., October 16, 2015, Page 8, Image 8

News
Page 8
Street Roots • Oct. 16-22, 2015
The power of comedy
Curious Comedy Theater's Stacey Hallal uses improv to help
with literacy skills, assist dementia patients and even train police
handed those out with free tickets. It was
hard to even give away free tickets.
In those seven years, in the spring of
2008, Bridgetown (a Portland-based
comedy festival) started and we opened
that fall, and then about a year and a half
later, Helium (Comedy Club) opened.
Those things, plus “Portlandia,” really
changed Portland’s attitude about
comedy.
Comedy can be cool, and local comedy
can be awesome. Now there is a great
audience out there, and there are comedy
shows all over the city every night of the1 n
week.
BY SUE ZALOKAR
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
A fter about 10 years of research and
/% study, partly with Chicago’s Second
X JLcity, Stacey Hallal brought what she
learned back to the Rose City and, in
2008, opened the nonprofit Curious
Comedy Theater.
The group performs its own main-stage
improv, sketch, and it does standup
comedy shows two to four days a week.
The theater celebrated its seventh
anmverfury ikri U...............
■—
,, ,,,
As artistic director, Hallal designed a
curriculum inspired by her time on the
faculty at Second City Chicago to share
with curious Portland students. The
group also does outreach in the
community, -using improv to increase
literacy skills, improve quality of life for
dementia patients and, soon, to train
police officers in Hillsboro on how to
apply improvisational thinking to difficult
situations they might encounter on the
street with people experiencing mental
health issues. There’s nothing funny
about that, but Hallal stresses the
importance of thinking on your feet
Another outreach program of Curious
Comedy Theater is the All Jane Comedy
Festival. Now in its fourth year, the
festival features female comics from
across the nation. Considering that “only
17 to 19 percent of the industry in
Hollywood in writing rooms and at major
comedy festivals are women,” Hallal said,
the gender-sgecific nature of the festival
gives women an opportunity to showcase
the amazing talent of female comedic
writers and performers. The content is
not female-specific, though, and
organizers and comics alike encourage
everyone to check out one of dozens of
shows during the five-day comedy festival.
The All Jane Comedy Festival began
Oct 14 and runs through Sunday at
various locations arouifd town. You can
learn more at www.alljanecomedy.org.
Street Roots talked with Hallal, who
was calling from a business trip in
Michigan.
Sue Zalokar: Michigan, huh? What
are you doing in Michigan?
S.Z.: So when you say, “We opened in
2008,” you're talking about Curious Comedy
Theater. Tell me about that.
PHOTO BY NICK LYON, COURTESY OF STACEY HALLAL
Stacey Hallal: I have a day job. I’m a
marketing consultant It’s not like a full­
time, office day job. It’s a freelance job
that I do. I travel about a week a month,
and I use improvisation to help big brands
to better understand storytelling.
S.Z.: Interesting. So you apply the
technique of improvisation to marketing for
businesses?
S.H.: Yep. The company is called
Character LLC. I’ve done about 150
brands (in the past 15 years).
S.Z.: That's interesting. Improv is a
specific skill. I'm a musician and a writer,
but being an improvisational thinker, in
terms of art, is very challenging for me.
S.H.: Improvisation teaches you how to
be in the moment It teaches you
observation skills. It teaches you listening
skills, cooperation skills, give-and-take, in
addition to the actual storytelling skills.
S.Z.: The pulse of comedy in Portland -
what is that like from your perspective?
S.H.: That’s a great question because
when we opened The Curious Comedy
Theater seven years ago, there were a
couple of great institutions that had been
here a long time, but they weren’t really
connected to each other. They were kind
of islands in and of themselves.
In general, Portland was not supportive
of comedy. Everyone loved our music and
our local food and local filmmaking scene,
but comedy?
When we first opened, we made
posters that said, “Dare to laugh,” and
S.H.: That was something I had dreamed
of for about 10 years. When I first moved to
Portland from Eugene, I fell in love with the
city. I decided I wanted to someday open a
theater. I was just starting improv and I
didn’t really have the skills or the
credentials or the resources to do
something like that
I spent the next 10 years, building that up
- including moving to Chicago for four years
- to study at all the Chicago Institutions
there. I studied at Second City, and I did the
Second City Conservatory and their writing
program and directing program. I assistant-
directed a Main Stage show at Second City.
I felt like I was ready to come back to
Portland and open a place.
About six months after I moved back, I
found the space we’re in.
We opened on a shoestring and a lot of
good will from the friends I had and the
community we had built
S.Z.: Your mission says that the theater
programming aimprove(s) the lives of kids,
adults, and seniors through the art of comedy.”
That must be pretty rewarding.
S.H.: It really is. It’s pretty awesome.
Even our shows, I think, are a contribution
to the community. We give a lot of voice to
people who aren’t normally given
opportunities to have their voices heard.
Our ensemble is fairly well-balanced male to
female, more than your typical improv
theater across the nation. Our shows are