Courtesy of Rookie Card

Atheists in heaven and angels selling clouds are just a few of the things you might witness at a Rookie Card improv show. Though Rookie Card is not exactly a veteran improv team ' only forming this past March ' these guys are no rookies (hardy, har) at comedy. The five members ' Marc Reber, Jake Alvarez, Jesse Kimball, John Di Santo and JP Boudwin ' are all grads of the Philadelphia Improv Theatre, and together they form a crazy bunch willing to discuss almost anything on stage, from religion to Hitler to weird sexual relationships. They'll be playing at the Philadelphia Improv Festival tonight at 9:30 p.m. at Society Hill Playhouse (507 S. Eighth St., 215-923-0210), for $10. I caught up with them (minus Boudwin) at the Raven Lounge this week before one of their shows.

Critical Mass: So how would you describe your style of humor?

Marc Reber: One of things I notice is that we are kind of fearless as a group. We do a lot of jumping in on scenes and changing the focus of scenes, so each of our scenes have other scenes within them.

John Di Santo: I would say our style would be just kind of, like ' sloppy.

Jesse Kimball: Absurdly juvenile meets dark and tragic ' in a kind of sloppy, fearless way.

Jake Alvarez: Our show has been described as being really clusterfucky.

Jesse Kimball: They say you need to learn the rules before you break 'em, but that's not true ' because we still don't know the rules, and we break 'em.

CM: How do you start a show?

JK: The form that we do is called the 'Herald.'

JA: It's a very basic form, but we're one of the few groups in town that does it.

JDS: You have an opening with a word suggestion, and you have three scenes all in the first round.

MR: For example, the word is "hippo."

JK: So we come out and we're in a safari, and then because hippos have big teeth, Reber and Di Santo are doing a dentist scene, and the next scene is a pool cleaner and this lady trying to seduce him. And in the third beat, you find out that the dentist is actually the pool cleaner's husband.

JDS: In the third scene, you try to find connections among all the previous scenes.

JK: It's like Pulp Fiction, kind of.

CP: What kind of audience do you like?

JDS: The larger the audience, the more energy that's generated and the better generally the show becomes, because you're kind of guided by the audience.

JK: It's a lot like a DJ playing, because whatever they're playing, people are getting into it, and then they'll spin it into something else. The audience influences what the next thing is going to be.

CM: Do you guys follow specific character roles?

JA: I tend to fall into the devil.

JK: Reber plays Jesus a lot. I play a wife a lot. I like to play coming-of-age teenagers that are seeking a male figure.

JDS: I usually play a hot Latino woman.

CM: Why did you choose improv over standup?

JDS: What I like is that the sum ends up being greater than the individual parts. There's a term called 'group mind' where everyone ends up thinking on the same wavelength, and that is like a high. That's the best part.

JK: It's like havin' sex with four other dudes at once, but less messy.

Friday, October 2, 2009