The "Improvised Friends" cast: (from left) Josh Wright as Ross, Maura Mazurowski as Monica, Aaron Grant as Joey, Beau Cribbs as Chandler, Erin Adelman as Phoebe and Kim Nario as Rachel (Photo courtesy Double Take)
The television sitcom “Friends” was on for so long — 1994 to 2004 — and in reruns for many years more, and its recent reintroduction into the culture through streaming is entertaining an audience that might not have seen the show before.
The Coalition Theater is catching the “Friends” nostalgia wave with its own variation: an improvisational re-creation of the show using audience suggestions for the through line.
You can go see for yourself, at 8 p.m. on Fridays through February, with a special Valentine’s Day episode and a “cliffhanger season finale” on Feb. 28. Tickets are $10.
The one with the big idea for the show is Maura Mazurowski. The Northern Virginia native's background and training includes theater and the Virginia Commonwealth University Cinema program.
“Truth be told, I grew up watching 'Friends,' ” says the performer, who’s worked with the improv-based Coalition since January 2017. She came up through Coalition programs to join teams in a variety of shows. One of these was a slasher movie send-up with the improviser who became her “Friends” colleague, former "RVA Tonight" host Beau Cribbs.
But when she performed in a Richmond Triangle Players production, “Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England," in which “Friends” formed a central part, Mazurowski received a suggestion. She revisited the series and considered using the show’s milieu for improvised situation comedy.
The Coalition Theater employs periodic summits for introducing new programs. Mazurowski wanted to pitch “Friends” but couldn’t attend this crucial session, and she asked another person read her idea. This got Cribbs’ attention.
“I love sitcoms in general,” he says. “My ears perked up. It was one of those things where I couldn’t believe we’d never thought of this before.”
Research indicated that troupes in New York and Cambridge, England, had created improvised “Seinfeld” episodes, but none that the Coalitioners know of had chosen to enter the “Friends” zone.
Last year, the show marked its 25th anniversary, and that made it a trending social media topic.
“We never considered setting it in today,” Cribbs explains, “so it’s somewhere in 2000. No cell phones. No internet. People go along with the concept. ‘We need to reach Chandler! How can we do that?’ Pay phones and Blockbuster Video are funny kind of tropes.”
“Friends” is a show that probably a few in the audience imagined themselves, or their friends, inhabiting. It’s a bit of “let’s pretend,” except this is taking the characters live and onstage, into situations not covered on television.
“Saying, 'If this is true, what else is true?' " Mazurowski offers as an improv dictum. That is, if the “Friends” could be placed in a situation wherein their characters are maintained but in an otherwise unusual circumstance, what then would happen? (For example, Joey dating a ghost. They did that one. "She’s really into me," Cribbs imitated.)
Not every “Friends” predicament holds up 25 years on. The show depicted a fantasy about living without visible or sufficient means of support in New York City — just as 1930s Hollywood comedy films, with notable exceptions, ignored the Great Depression and other nettlesome issues. Nostalgia can lead to critical observation.
“It's a time capsule of the ’90s, for better or worse,” observes Cribbs, who in the show assumes the role of Chandler. “In watching some of the episodes, we all cringed at a few of the dated punchlines. We steer clear of that in our show. The whole cast is on the same page about this. We get how there are some things that were generally accepted as funny or mainstream in 1994 that are off-limits in 2020.”
The re-created opening title sequence was performed in Jefferson Park on a rather chilly November evening. “But it was fun,” Mazurowski enthuses, with we-can-do-it Monica-ness, in keeping with the character she plays. The curious couch was provided by … friends at Paisley and Jade.
Cribbs and Mazurowski chose the cast from the deep bench of Coalition improvisers. Aaron Grant, who plays Joey, wasn’t, as Cribbs explains, a “superfan” of the program. “But Maura has given us all homework in between rehearsals to help us with the characters,” Cribbs adds. “We also watched several episodes together and analyzed them. Aaron is a quick study, and since he was seeing some of the episodes we watched for the first time, he had a fresh set of eyes, and I think he's done a great job.”
The cast is rounded out by Kim Nario (Rachel), Erin Adelman (Phoebe) and Josh Wright (Ross).
Mazurowski enjoys how the company’s technical director, Joey Tran, includes a laugh track and occasional incidental music for the show — providing familiar verisimilitude for the fantasy. The show runs around 35 to 40 minutes, a bit longer than the original, and it's commercial-free.
“Definitely it’s my dream that members of the cast will see this online,” Mazurowski says, then laughs. “That’ll probably never happen.”
Which sounds like a line from “Friends.”
