 "Photo: Curt Youngblood")
It's that time of year again, to get back into the groove of things now that the fall semester has started. Today will see most UT students spend a fortune on books, discover the quickest route from one distant classroom to the other and dread opening up their dense and stifling texts. However, all is not lost completely to academia. Tonight, and for the next five days, the fifth annual Out of Bounds Improvisation Festival and Miniature Golf Tournament takes place across Austin.
Featuring a gathering of talented actors who have specifically mastered the art of improvisation, the festival occurs each year in various locations downtown, with groups putting on an exhilarating and hysterical show for spectators. The festival's founder and executive producer is Jeremy Lamb, a former UT student who has been improvising on stage for 10 years. Lamb and his comrades traveled around to compete in improv contests to get their start in the popular comedic form and, after discovering their likes and dislikes based on those experiences, created their own idealized contest in 2002.
In the beginning, Lamb said, "there were a lot of naked people and even some arrests."
Needless to say, Lamb revised his own creation to his taste and to the benefit of the improv actors, as well as to the enjoyment of the audience.
That first year, in 2002, Lamb said there were only 10 groups of improvisors.
Times have changed. This week, there will be groups from Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland and San Francisco, as well as a slew of locals.
Each group has its own style of improvisation, Lamb said. Some groups are given an object - for example, something taken from a kitchen - and must create a sketch on the spot. Others are given scenarios from which they miraculously develop an entire play right before the audience's eyes.
Observing how the ideas of these talented entertainers unfold within an instant is exciting. Onlookers are also dazzled by the promises of Austin's scene.
"I want to show people what Austin has to offer," Lamb said.
Lamb described several out-of-staters who were so smitten by Austin's lush vegetation, great eats and quirky locals that they pulled him aside to announce their plans to immediately relocate here. The improv festival is open to all forms of creativity and new and different ideas - everything Lamb stands for.
Accompanying the festival will be miniature golf, which is available to both performers and guests, a cool addition that makes it well worth dropping by the Out of Bounds Improv Festival and appreciating this locally founded event.
Details and tickets are available at http://www.outofboundsimprov.com. Tonight's show is at the Hideout Theatre, 617 Congress Ave., at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10.
