The year is 1999. A line stretches out the door from The Internet Cafe in Red Bank, New Jersey. If you didn’t get there early enough, you would have to be turned away due to capacity. Fans from all walks of life would come out on weekends to grab a late night coffee and laugh until they literally cried courtesy of the long running comedy troupe known as Improv Jam.
Improv Jam was a staple of my late teenage years. Going almost every weekend with friends and staying out late in a fun, safe space. Sometimes we would make a point to get there early or help promote the shows in hopes of getting in for free. If you were brave enough to ask a girl out on a date, you were taking her to Improv Jam. We’d become friendly with the guys on stage and looked at them like celebrities (many of whom became just that). Sometimes we would even let them get into the movie theater for free when we were all working at the local cinema over the summer. These were some of the greatest memories of my young adult life.
On Saturday October 18, Improv Jam is reuniting with leader Mike O’Keefe at Kevin Smith’s Smodcastle Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands, NJ for its 30th Anniversary. All of your favorites will be there. Mike, Pete, Carl, Dimitri, and a slew of others will be on hand.
Speaking with O’Keefe in regards to how the reunion came to be, he stated, “The idea for this reunion came about when a few of us went to see our good friend Brian Lynch’s debut of his movie Big Helium Dog last year at Smodcastle. I didn’t realize how much of an impact Improv Jam had on so many people when they were first starting out. You have to understand, these folks, our old friends, are now doing great things in Hollywood. Guys like Nathan Fillion, Bart Nickerson, Rich Monaghan from Yellowjackets, and Brian, who is one of the best comedic writers in Hollywood right now all spent a lot of time in our Red Bank orbit back in the day. We thought, why not try to bring the old gang back together for one night because we aren’t getting any younger. Smodcastle is the perfect place to rehash that old uncensored improv because Kevin and his crew come from the same comedic place we did back in the day.”
Nathan Fillion was indeed part of the troupe, and found much success in television series like Castle, Firefly, and most recently as Guy Gardner in Superman. He’s not the only famed Improv Jam member. Pete Capella was just at New York Comic Con as he was the original voice of Silver the Hedgehog in the Sonic the Hedgehog video game series. The guys and girls of Improv Jam have also shared the stage with the likes of Who’s Line is it Anyway’s Wayne Brady.
Fans of Improv Jam have been waiting for an event like this for years, and I urge fans of all Improv Jam eras to get your tickets now.
