Da Bureau of Improv

Whoa! September flew by and was very, very busy! So busy, that the weekly show recaps kind of just got dropped completely. But we had some great shows and some stellar guest troupes! So let’s recap them!

Note: I’ve already forgotten most of what happened, so I’m gonna try to piece together the last month based on photos and messages.

9/8

On 9/8 we played with Big Fun Social. I do not remember what the set was about or what the suggestions were. Based on messages, it was a good set and we had a good crowd!

I did get some pics of Big Fun Social, I just made this one into a gif that cracks me up because of Jared’s leg movement

9/15

I was sick as a dog on the 15th so was not at this show, so I have no idea what happened. According to our spreadsheet, our guest on 9/15 was Chet Jetski. Here’s a picture of Da Bureau with Chet Jetski!

According to our group chat, the suggestion was elevator, and there was a really fun scene about a cheese tour. The crowd apparently was very small and the rhythm of the set suffered a bit as a result. But at least one part of one of the scenes got two thumbs up from Jared!

9/19

There was no show on 9/19 but according to our chats it was Berg’s birthday. Happy birthday Bergs!

9/22

Oh man, this show and night in general was spectacular! Instead of our usual 9pm slot we played at 8pm, before Jake Russell’s fantastic one-man show Birth of a Hoe Ass Nation. A lot of people came out for Jake’s show and came in to watch ours, so we ended up with a big ol’ crowd and had a really great set. Our guest troupe was Two Chicks, who also had a great set! Here’s a picture of our troupes together in the dark Ghostlight Bar!

Another very cool thing about that night was that old time friend and improviser Tim Lally came out to watch the show. If you know Tim, you know. Had a great time catching up with him!

Also while I’m here and looking at a picture of Jeff (who’s stage managed a lot of these shows), I’d love to give a big thanks to all the stage managers who’ve run these shows for us. Your work sometimes goes unseen but is greatly appreciated!

9/29

We definitely forgot to take a group pic for this show! Our guest was Patty and Patty and they did great!

The Bureau set was fellas only, there was some really strong parts but it was one of those sets where we sat around for like an hour afterwards trying to dissect what went wrong with it. I think part of it was we didn’t do the three patient scenes up top that we normally do and that threw us off. We also decided on this show that if the crowd seems like it’s going to be smaller to pull the back row of chairs out to force the audience closer to the stage.

During this show it was a smaller crowd and a lot of people gravitated towards the farther back row and were just spread out more, and it’s already a tough stage to work on because you’re elevated pretty high and the ceilings are quite high. So whatever we can do to push the audience closer, so we can feed off each others’ energy, is great. We also committed to a pre-show checklist to account for things like that. There’s a definite learning curve to having your own show that we’ve been going through but we’re getting better at it!

10/6

FOREVER 15!!!!

This show was really great! Our guest troupe was Forever Fifteen, who are such a staple of Detroit improv and always an absolute treat to watch play together.

They are also, I believe, the first people outside of our troupe to take part in our warmup, which is a very, very heavily modified form of “woosh-ball”, which is a somewhat standard improv warmup, but we have added dozens and dozens of additional wild rules and moves added over the course of our years together. So it felt real special to share that with them and have them join in, and they were big fans!

We had a full Bureau in attendance, and our set went really well! Another great thing was that Coach hosted the show!

You may have heard of Coach on our Bureau tshirt, which you can buy right now on our Redbubble Store. He’s the one named “Coach”

Once again, I do not remember what the suggestion was. I should probably convince someone with a better memory to write these recaps. I feel like it was something where we all immediately though, “wow, that was a good suggestion that we never would have thought of”. But whatever it was spawned us doing this motion in our opening group scene and lead to a great set. So whoever suggested that, thanks!

I do remember that this was the set where a guy had gotten him and his Buddy kicked out of a bowling alley because he wished that a Mandela Effect happened to the owner so that it turned out someone he loved had just recently died who wasn’t dead before, and it turned out his Aunt had just recently died. The set got very heady and mind-fucky from there, with characters and parts being erased and replaced by either the Mandela Effect or the Butterfly Effect, but somehow stayed held together by that theme. There was also a funny scene where Jared and Bergs shocked each other but it felt really good that cracked us up.

Such a fun show!

Conclusion

Okay I’m finally caught up! I know there’s probably dozens of funny bits or cool things about some of these nights that I’m missing but this is all I’ve got in me for now. I’ll try to keep up on these blog posts more but no promises!

If you’re thinking “damn, I wish The Bureau had more pictures of these shows so people could see the funny stuff they’re doing” or “Boy, it sure isn’t the same reading about improv as it is watching it”, then come see a show! Take pics and send them to us on our Facebook page or Instagram!

We’re at Planet Ant in Detroit every Thursday at 9pm following Ants in the Hall. The show is Pay what you can, and there’s Karaoke after. So come make a night of it! Also, hot off the presses, is a new poster!

and if one poster is not enough, here’s our other poster (Design also available on a t-shirt!)!

Can’t wait to see you there!

Love,

Da Admin

Last week’s show

First, an acknowledgement and apology that we missed a Thursday Throwdown recap last week. Your humble website admin/Thursday Throwdown recap narrator was booked on another show and was unable to make it in time. Our special guest last week was Cash and Carry, I heard they did great job and I believe it! I’ve seen them perform probably at least a half dozen times and they always bring it! As far as The Bureau’s set goes, I’ll just let Jenny’s message from our group chat sum it up and then move on to this week’s show!

This week’s show!

This week’s show was phenomenal! Our friend in comedy Myles had a tree fall into her house so all of the proceeds for Ants in the Hall and Thursday Throwdown went towards helping her get it fixed. I didn’t catch the exact total but I believe over $400 was raised, which is awesome!

Opening the show this week was William, a two-man troupe from Kurt Brinker and Will Miller. Kurt would like you to know that in this photo he is pointing and not doing a finger gun. It is very important to make this distinction as finger-guns in improv are punishable by death.

Our Bureau set felt very good! From the suggestion of bedsheets came a variety of funny and connected scenes. Everyone seemed to come off stage feeling really good about the set. There were times that for sure went a little “blue” (a major plot point of the set was a 20k count sheet that could make you orgasm if you touched it), but we had a great crowd of people who were ready to laugh and went along with it. Honestly one of my favorite parts about performing at Planet Ant is the people who come out to watch shows are rarely, if ever, stuffy pearl-clutchers. It’s a fantastic venue to just play and be yourself at!

Also during this show we started promoting The Bureau of Merch , our Redbubble store. The DA BUREAU headphone guy shirt that Allen is wearing in the feature photo is just one of the many designs you can buy. Did forget to plug the album though. Hey, did you know that The Bureau has an album, Da Bureau by Da Bureau available on Spotify, Youtube Music, Tidal, and a bunch of other services? You can even find clips from our Album when making stories for Tiktok, Snapchat, or Insta! What a great time to be a fan of Da Bureau! Just search for “Da Bureau”!

Okay promotion over, thank you everyone who came out this week. We’re looking forward to seeing you again next week (which at the time of posting this is tomorrow!)!

Suggestion

• Bedsheets

Memorable Moments

• A 20k count bed sheet that cost $15k, it feels so good you have to be careful handling it because it could make you orgasm.
• Jared wearing the bedsheet as a cape and running around with it
• Explaining to an insurance adjuster how the bedsheet got ruined.
• Shit there was a bunch more but I’m only remembering scenes I was in

Our first show back after a two week hiatus from a power outage and then Detroit Improv Festival, and oh man was it great to be back! Big thank you to Your Weird Cousins for opening the show!

The Bureau was rocking a full quorum, with all seven active members present and accounted for. In addition, we had performing with us very special BIRTHDAY guest Cari Sue Murphy! Happy Birthday Cari! It was a blast playing with you!

Suggestions

• Bus Stop
• Apricots

Memorable Moments

No “memorable quote” that really sticks out, but for me at least the most memorable recurring theme was of a guy who won a “purple heart” for pulling people out of a burning bus, then taking them back in to pee in the bus bathroom, and then pulling them back out again. We then see that same guy later when his basement catches on fire and he has to help his nephew and friends pee before getting them out of the fire as well.

Set Notes

This set went longer than we normally play, and there were times when we felt that we were returning to the main location from the suggestion of “bus stop” too much, rather than exploring other locations that were related to it. The other side of that coin though is that while you’re performing and sweep to start a new scene it’s nice to know you can always just go back to the location from the suggestion, but at some point it can go from being a safety net to being a crutch, so navigating that balance can be difficult.

The length of the set may have contributed to those thoughts though, as at a certain point a lot of story lines had been concluded and connections/callbacks had also been exhausted. So you end up just going back to the bus stop hoping maybe someone new will show up. At our next rehearsal we’ll be discussing this further, and potentially going back to not getting a location suggestion as we have been doing.

Overall, though, it was a very fun set and we had some very positive audience feedback! We look forward to seeing you all next week. Remember, the show is now free/”Pay what you can”, so no reason not to come out and have a great night of comedy!

Another fun Thursday Throwdown in the books! We were very lucky to have the very funny Aaron Johnstone and Shawn Golden opening the show as Lorem Ipsum. Great set guys!

These shows have been incredibly fun! In fact, Thursday night at the Planet Ant in general is a great time right now. You get Ants in the Hall, which is a brand new semi-improvised concept show every week, then two troupes of straight long form improv in the Thursday Throwdown, and then end your night with Karaoke at the Ghost Light! Both shows are now moving to a “Pay what you can” pricing model, so come on out, have a great time, and support live comedy!

Suggestions

• High School Chemistry Room
• Pork Chop

Line of the night

Brace yourselves, we lost a lot of good breasts out there today.

Miranda

Another killer Thursday Throwdown in the books! Audience was light but the set was tight!

Due to the plague that will not go away we once again had a short cast this week, so big thank you to Daniel Jackson, Michael Duprey, Malen Taylor, and Lori Kurkowski, for filling in. Because half of our opening two man group Daddies was also sick, we ended up doing a single 35 minute set, which was a blast!

It’s still taking time to build our audience and letting people know we’re here, and starting this run in the middle of summer when comedy audiences are typically light certainly hasn’t helped, but we’re gonna keep at it! So come check us out every Thursday after Ants in the Hall, and then hang out with us after at the Ghost Light for Karaoke. Tickets are only $5 and can be purchased through this link or at the door.

We hope to see you soon!

Suggestions

• Library
• Frugral

Quote of the Night

“that’s got me even more wetter”

Jenny Haddo

Our second Thursday Throwdown! Due to multiple Covid-19 exposures there was only three members of The Bureau who were able to play, so a big thank you to Anna and Lori, coach and member of Go Comedy’s newest launch group Gemini Junior, for filling in! Big thanks to our guest troupe Half Pluto!

We’re still working on building this show, so tell your friends about the soon to be legendary Thursday Throwdown’s with Da Bureau!

Suggestions

• Glasgow
• Pineapple