This article is featured in the 2024 Homecoming Special Issue
At their most recent monthly performance at Sawtooth Kitchen, Valley Improv, a comedy group based in the Upper Valley, played to a packed house. Attendees, who ranged from ticket-holders to curious restaurant patrons, crowded into the performance space adjoining the restaurant’s dining area on Oct. 9, waiting over spilled drinks and half-eaten bar grub for the show to start.
A kind of short-form live theater, the Valley Improv shows, like most improv, consisted of a series of improvisational games drawing from audience suggestions. Cast members incorporated audience ideas into plots, characters and various comedic structures to create scenes acted out on the spot. The improv formats, or “games,” featured new choice, where performers switch scenarios whenever the titular phrase is called; a game where performers build upon a continuous scenario known as revolving door; and blind line, where performers incorporate random lines on scattered pieces of paper across the stage to further the scenario.
Founded in 2008, Valley Improv is committed to bringing “fun and energetic” improvisational comedy to both children and adults, according to its website.
Valley Improv has a strong connection to the College as well. Several members are currently affiliated with Dartmouth in some way, as faculty, employees on campus and with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and as graduates. Ben Guaraldi ’00, the group’s founder, is himself an alumnus.
While he did not personally participate in improv on campus while he was a student, Guaraldi has rekindled that flame through several performances alongside Dartmouth’s active improv groups, the Dog Day Players and Casual Thursday.
The Dog Day Players and Casual Thursday comprise two out of four comedy clubs on campus and were officially recognized in 1995 and 2004, respectively. Casual Thursday practices game-based, interactive comedy similar to Valley Improv’s short-form style, while the Dog Day Players opt for long-form improv. Rather than dividing by games, Dog Day performances feature a collection of storylines that interweave along various scenes.
The varying types of improv are not common knowledge. Dog Day president Daniel Lampert ’25 described their freeform sets as “watching a sitcom, [where] all of the characters unfold and develop as you go along” as opposed to short-form where “the humor that arises from the games arises from the gist of the game itself”.
The more entertaining improv style ultimately boils down to personal preference. Lampert said he believes that freeform is the most satisfying given how the “four storylines we introduced at the start interweave and come to some singular conclusion.”
Each Valley Improv performance is led by a show director, who serves as an intermediary between the cast and audience members by collecting audience prompts. Directors also ensure that games are running smoothly and performers are adhering to the rules of the improv games, only bending them when comedically necessary. Cast member Liz Rizzo, who joined Valley Improv in 2022 and directed Sawtooth’s Oct. 9 show, said one of the logistical challenges of being director is arranging scenes in such a way so as to play to each cast member’s strengths.
“Some of the games are much more physical, and different people have different capabilities physically,” she said. “Usually the more experienced [improvisers] do the directing, since a considerable amount of brain power goes into setting up the shows.”
During the Oct. 9 show — which was the first Rizzo directed — she found her footing despite some of the difficulties transitioning between her simultaneous roles as cast member and director.
“[I] get so busy watching the game that I forget that I’m supposed to be directing the game,” Rizzo said.
This challenge exists across all forms of improv. Even though long-form improv troupes like Dog Day don’t have directors, plenty of thought is still placed into the setup of each show.
According to Lampert, he designs acts with “a mix of class years, energies, genders, in order to get a balanced show.” Improv is, by its nature, unpredictable and needs the cast to be rounded out.
“You don't want to put all of the louder improvisers in one set and quieter in the other,” Lampert said.
Live entertainment has been a part of Sawtooth Kitchen’s heritage since it opened in September 2022. Founder Kieran Campion said he was an actor and talent agent before entering the restaurant business, which shaped his vision for Sawtooth.
“Sawtooth is built to support the arts,” Campion said. “All the food we sell, all the drinks we sell — it’s really here because I wanted a place in Hanover where people could come and see live music and comedy.”
Comedy is a staple of the restaurant’s event lineup, with shows put on at least once a week, according to Campion, who coordinates Sawtooth’s event programming. Comedy events, held every Wednesday, consist of open mic nights, headlining stand-ups and, since last spring, the monthly Valley Improv set.
Because they often attract Sawtooth larger and more engaged audiences than the venue’s other comedy acts, Campion called improv shows “a different beast.”
Still, Campion said it was initially difficult to find local improv troupes that are not student-run. According to Campion, student-run improv troupes can be difficult to coordinate with on scheduling. Not all members are typically able to schedule bookings months in advance.
“The students arrive in the middle of September, and I’ve already booked everything through Christmas,” he said. “It’s tough to get schedules to match.”
Campion’s vision of bringing improv troupes to Sawtooth only became a reality when Guaraldi reached out to him to coordinate a monthly improv showcase, Campion said.
“Valley Improv is the only improv group in the area that [performs] on [a] semi-professional basis,” Campion said.
For 16 years, Valley Improv has filled the Upper Valley’s improv niche. According to performer Tatum Barnes, the rural nature of the region has made it difficult to attract talent for the group. By contrast, big-name troupes like Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade — based in Chicago and Los Angeles, respectively — regularly attract experienced comedy performers for larger stages and television.
Valley Improv ultimately recruits members from local communities through an audition process. Barnes added that he appreciated the “diversity” of the group.
“Above all else, … Valley Improv … is [full] of people from all different walks of life, different stages of life and different [levels] of experience in improv,” Barnes said. “You have people who have done it professionally in big cities like [New York City], Boston and [Los Angeles], and people of various gender expressions and racial identities.
Barnes added that he has tried participating in more intense, city-based improv troupes, but he did not enjoy his time in them because they were “so regimented.”
“They’re built to produce improvisers, and they do so quite successfully, but it lost what I liked most about improv, which was fooling around with people that I enjoy and being silly,” he explained.
Lampert expressed a similar sentiment, calling Dog Day “three times a week for an hour-and-a-half where I get to go hang out with my friends and laugh and feel happy.”
Just as Dog Day accepts college freshmen looking to try something new, Valley Improv includes both improv veterans and rookies.
“You have people who have never done [improv] before,” Barnes said. “It all comes together in a sick community that comes together on a weekly basis to try to get better and support each other as we practice this odd blend of sport and art.”
