Carl Gottlieb.
Larry Hankin’s Fool’s Play
The Committee’s relatively short-lived space on Montgomery Street hosted several notable productions, including Barbara Garson’s MacBird!, Michael McClure’s The Beard, and, pictured here, Larry Hankin’s The Fool’s Play. Thanks to Mark Robertson for the pic.
Matchbooks.
Matchbooks produced for the Committee’s 50th Anniversary Party. The back lists the address of the theater on Broadway, and a sweet old-timey phone exchange. Pic by Sam Willard.
The Committee’s 50th Anniversary Party
On April 27 The San Francisco Improv Festival was pleased to convene over 100 cast, crew, friends, and fans of pioneering comedy troupe The Committee to celebrate their 50th anniversary. It was an incredible honor to be in a position to throw this party, and it was pretty intense to find oneself the midst of such an incredible host of talent. Most living members of The Committee were present, and they were joined by luminaries such Senator John Burton, the chair of the California Democratic Party, State Senator Mark Leno, R.G. Davis (founder of the San Francisco Mime Troupe), satirist Will Durst and representatives of the SF improv and sketch comedy community, including Kimberly MacLean (BATS Improv), Jill Eickmann (Leela Theater), and Rob Ready, Dan Williams and Kevin Fink (Piano Fight). Jamie Wright and Sam Shaw hosted the evening, which took place at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Diamond Heights. Sam Willard took photos of attendees for his Improvisers portrait series, and an oral history video studio was set up for attendees to record Committee stories and recollections.We will post a gallery of photos soon. We will also be announcing more details of an upcoming film project on The Committee that the festival has in store. We have big plans. Stay tuned, and thanks for your ongoing support. (pictured: Committee founders Alan Myerson and Latifah Taormina address the crowd).
Cross-posted from www.sfimprovfestival.com.
The Committee is 50 Today!
On this date in 1963, the most influential comedy theater to ever emerge out of the Bay Area – The Committee – opened its doors at 622 Broadway in North Beach. Thus began a full decade of widespread cultural influence, with multiple studio albums, appearances on The Tonight Show and The Dick Cavett show, and a feature film. The Committee’s provocative and confrontational style, influenced equally by Chicago’s Second City and the radical politics of the era, set the stage for much of the comedy to follow. To all actors, crew, backers, and friends of this incredible company, the San Francisco Improv Festival says HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (picture of Barbara Bosson at The Committee Theater, San Francisco, circa 1967)
cross-posted from http://www.sfimprovfestival.com
A Secret History of American Comedy
I came to improvisation pretty late in life compared to most improvisors. I didn’t see my first show until I was 30 and freshly moved to Amsterdam for multimedia school. I had gotten a job tending bar at Boom Chicago, yet another of Amsterdam’s odd landmarks – a wildly successful and (largely) American improv & sketch comedy show in the heart of Holland. It was amazing.
And as with anyone who has ‘discovered’ improvisation, there was no going back. I started doing projects for the show and pretty soon designed a video system for improvising live video & integrating set video pieces into the show. Owners Andrew Moskos and Ken Schaefle rolled the dice and took me on as video director, an act of blind faith for which I am eternally grateful.
Once I was working full-time in the shows, I had to know more. I asked cast member Jason Sudeikis whose uncle George Wendt had been a stalwart at The Second City, and who had a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the art. When he told me about Second City, Improv Olympic, UCB & The Groundlings, all in Chicago, NYC and LA, I had to ask if San Francisco had a history with improvisation. He said Del Close had worked at a place called The Committee, but that he’d never seen much information on it. It was at that point I knew I had to learn more.
Having grown up in the Bay Area, I had heard of The Committee in the same breath as The Diggers and sit-ins in the Park, but never really knew much about what they did, pretty much rolling it all into street theater and people getting high. What can I say – I grew up in the Reagan Era. Once Sam Shaw, myself, and members of Crisis Hopkins took up the cause of the San Francisco Improv Festival in 2010, we knew the first thing we wanted to do was celebrate the city’s history with improvisation – and that started with The Committee.
As Sam says in his post, we were extraordinarily fortunate to have the cooperation of founding director Alan Myerson in putting together a panel with Carl Gottlieb, Larry Hankin, Allaudin Matthieu, Jim Cranna, and lassoing Del Close’s biographer Kim “Howard” Johnson to moderate. Once I met these people, and looking at the skills and resources we had available, I knew we had to get a documentary going. It’s an amazing story of San Francisco, political activism, theater, and improvisation, with roots in the beginnings of The Compass and Second City and tendrils extending out into the current state of the art and most modern, popular comedy.
Here’s a taste of our first effort with The Committee – one of their classics – reprised with the help of Howard Johnson, in August of 2010:
How It All Started
left to right: Larry Hankin, Kim “Howard” Johnson (moderator), Alan Myerson, and Carl Gottlieb.
I founded the San Francisco Improv Festival with Shaun Landry in 2004. Back then I dreamed of doing some kind of a Committee event, either a reunion show or panel discussion. As an improviser familiar with the standard improv histories – Janet Coleman’s The Compass, Jeffrey Sweet’s Something Wonderful Right Away, etc. – The Committee was a bit of an enigma to me. There simply wasn’t much recent material on them, which meant a 21st century celebration was long overdue.
We never got to it in the festival’s early years. But when I and members of my troupe Crisis Hopkins took over the Festival in 2010, a Committee event was our first priority. Thankfully, Committee founder Alan Myerson was more than happy to participate. Not only did he enlist his mates Larry Hankin, Carl Gottlieb, Allaudin Mathieu and Jim Cranna to join in the fun, he came armed with a trove of old photos and press clippings. For an improviser with an interest in history, this was all I ever wanted.
Since the 2010 panel, my partner Jamie Wright has been steadily collecting interviews of Committee participants. I think early on he had a documentary in mind. In the last year or so we decided to make it an official project. We have a lot more material to gather, and since it’s not a full-time effort for either of us it’s slow-going, but I’m pleased to say that a feature-length documentary on The Committee is now in production. SO FUN. – Sam Shaw