March 2008 | On Our Radar
Improv Everywhere You Want to Be
In Manhattan’s stately Grand Central Terminal, at precisely 2:30pm on February 24 of last year, a curious and slightly alarming event transpired. Hundreds of people on the Main Concourse stopped what they were doing — reading schedules, running for trains, bending to retrieve fallen papers, even one couple kissing — to freeze in place for a full five minutes. Noxious gas or an alien takeover? Nah — just another madcap mission from Improv Everywhere, the decentralized group of merry pranksters whose videotaped antics have been making internet rounds from Gawker to YouTube to BoingBoing.
Improv Everywhere was born when, out of boredom or creative genius, out-of-work actor Charlie Todd first masqueraded as a rock star in a West Village bar in 2001. The stunt was so much more fun than an off-Broadway audition, Todd decided to create his own spontaneous performance group, Improv Everywhere. Within months, he was organizing, photographing and videotaping clusters of three to three hundred people carrying out outrageous public pranks.
Todd’s stated mission is to “cause scenes of chaos and joy in public places,” so predictably, the numbers grew and the buzz got louder. For this year’s annual “No Pants” mission January 12, nearly 2,000 folks dropped trou on subways in 10 cities around the world, 900 of them in New York alone.
We all know the Big Apple isn’t the only place where people are willing to freeze their butts off for a good time. If you’re ready to become an Improv Anywhere “Global Agent,” stay tuned to upcoming missions at ImprovEverywhere.com.
— Abigail Lewis
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