East Hawaii can keep things light thanks to a group of eight jokesters offering laughter-filled performances and team-building corporate exercises through improvisational comedy.
The Big Island Comedy Theater offers shows and workshops at the Keawe Theater in Hilo alongside the Hilo Community Players, as well as shows at the Hilo Town Market and free adult improv classes called “A Moveable Feast” at the Center for Spiritual Living in Hawaiian Paradise Park.
“We believe that laughter is a way to unite our community, to be in the moment and not take ourselves too seriously. Our job is joy,” said founder and director Keli Semelsberger, a 30-year veteran of both improv comedy and corporate team-building. “Our shows reflect and resonate our commitment to the healing aspects of play.”
Originally founded in 2019, the troupe returned in January 2024 after a pandemic break and cast 10 out of the 12 people who auditioned. The troupe does pay to play: Each rehearsal costs each performer $20, and the several months of classes to prepare for continuous performing costs about $40 per class, Semelsberger said. All of those payments cover the cost of the performance venues and marketing for the shows, she explained.
However, Semelsberger said she’s extending a scholarship to any hopeful players who are ready to commit but have financial restraints. She’s offering free classes through the scholarship, which she’s also offered through her Charlotte Comedy Theater in North Carolina, and is particularly seeking to cast more Native Hawaiians.
“Our desire is to be part of the bigger community and to give back to the community. We want to be inclusive,” Semelsberger said of having the troupe’s diversity reflect Hilo’s demographics. “I would really love to have more (Native Hawaiians) involved because it also teaches us so much about the community that we’re in.”
Recent cast members have included two players born and raised in Hilo — Amy Erece and DJ Carvalho — alongside others from states like Indiana, New York, Massachusetts and Minnesota.
Cast member Ludo Walsh, 66, a Philadelphia native who has lived on Big Island for 10 years, has said he’s “thrilled to take up the mantle of ‘village elder’ in this talented troupe of lunatics.”
“It’s been wonderful. I’m a bit of a ham,” Walsh said of performing with the group for nearly two years. “It has just been a great opportunity to engage my mind, express myself, and be funny.”
Walsh said his favorite game that is utilized in the performances is “Blind Line,” where the audience writes lines of random dialogue on folded cards that are then handed to the players to incorporate into their skits. The comedy lies in the times when the blind dialogue drastically doesn’t fit with the scene being played, which Walsh describes as “completely off the wall, and you have to make it sound like that’s absolutely what you meant to say.”
Semelsberger explained what makes improv great for corporate team-building events is “a true team dynamic that allows for real-time pivoting, collaboration instead of finger-pointing, co-creating solutions and creative problem-solving.”
Semelsberger said another game used in the improv shows that’s often a big hit is “Seriously Active,” in which “two players will do crazy activities suggested by the audience while trying to have a serious conversation, and a lot of physical comedy ensues.”
“Seriously Active” is the favorite game of cast member Becky Brett, who is a Chicago native like Semelsberger and has been with BICT for about three years. She laughed as she recalled playing out serious conversations about someone dying or a break up while acting out physical activities like skydiving or pickleball.
Brett said the opportunity to add levity through play during trying times is something she feels both the actors and the audience benefit from.
“We get to reflect back our community’s stories in a way that can be healing,” she said. “There’s a lot of heaviness in the world right now, and we get to re-tell those stories in a way that may be easier to digest, easier to recognize, easier to be in that story. We get to do that for our community and for ourselves, as well. This is healing for us as performers.”
Big Island Comedy Theater shows are rated R for adult content. Tickets are on sale now for Big Island Comedy Theater’s show with the Hilo Community Players at the Keawe Theater at 7 p.m. on May 31.
Tickets are $10 at www.hiloplayers.org and $15 at the door on the day of the show.
The group also will a two-hour workshop at the Center for Spiritual Living from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. June 20 in Hawaiian Paradise Park, with a 6 p.m. show following workshop.
Learn more about seeing or joining the group at www.bigislandcomedytheater.net.
Email Kyveli Diener at kdiener@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
