BATS Improv Hosts Laughing Stock Benefit Performance

BATS IMPROV HOSTS LAUGHING STOCK BENEFIT PERFORMANCE OF
“MERRY TALES AND NURSERY LINES”
Benefit to Support Free Improv Class Program for Bay Area Residents with AIDS, Other Life-Threatening Illnesses

Laughing Stock, the community service arm of the BATS Center for Improvisational Theatre (“BATS Improv”), will be hosting a benefit performance to open the 12th Annual BATS Summer Improv Festival on Thursday, August 3. Laughing Stock’s performance troupe, The Mirth Brokers, will be presenting Merry Tales and Nursery Lines, a night of improvised adult fairy tales and bedtime stories with modern-day twists developed by Jonathan Goldman and BATS’ famous Gerri Lawlor. All proceeds will benefit Laughing Stock’s ongoing program of providing free professional improvisation classes to people living with HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis C, cancer, and other chronic, life-threatening illnesses (along with their partners and caregivers). Admission price is a suggested $15 donation, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Additionally, free admission (and a possible onstage walk-on) will be given to any audience member dressed as a fairy godmother!

Now in its 8th year, Laughing Stock offers beginning series classes and individual workshops focused on strengthening quality of life through humor, easy physical activity, group interaction, risk-taking, and imagination games. Said Jonathan Goldman, Laughing Stock’s volunteer coordinator, “These classes enable people to empower themselves, foster community, reconnect with their imaginations and creative impulses, and of course, laugh a whole lot.”

Laughing Stock classes are held approximately once a month at Cal Pacific’s Davies Campus in San Francisco, but a special workshop series for women will be held during July at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center in Oakland. Laughing Stock also offers Intro to Improv workshops on-site at agencies in the Bay Area for eligible populations of clients and staff.

Leading up to the performance, Laughing Stock is also promoting a “caption writing” contest for its show cartoon graphic, available at ww.improv.org/shows/laughingstock.htm. Anyone planning on attending the benefit performance is encouraged to bring their proposed caption(s) to the benefit; prizes will be awarded for the audience’s favorites.

WHAT: Merry Tales and Nursery Lines, an Improvised BATS Improv/Laughing Stock Benefit:

WHERE: The Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Building B, 3rd Floor, San Francisco’s Marina District

WHO: The Mirth Brokers, The Mirth Brokers, a vastly diverse group of performers – all former Laughing Stock students and fans of the program, who have performed together for over four years at care centers, the QComedy Showcase, and most recently at the Marin AIDS Project Retreat.

WHEN: Thursday night, August 3, 2006. 8:00; doors/concessions open at 7:30

TICKETS: Suggested Donation: $15
Costumed fairy godmothers - Free
No one turned away for lack of funds

Advance tickets available at http://www.improv.org; Group sales available; email info [at] improv.org


About BATS Improv – Celebrating 20 years/1986 – 2006
Acclaimed by critics as “bounce-in-your seat funny,” “consistently hilarious” and “San Francisco's premiere improvisational theatre”, BATS Improv (http://www.improv.org) has been a leader in the Bay Area's innovative improv theatre scene for nearly twenty years. Fifty weeks a year, BATS presents a series of completely improvised shows in a variety of formats—from comic competitions to improvised musicals and everything in between. BATS has also gained a reputation as one of the best schools of improvisational theatre anywhere in the world, and offers improv classes and workshops to individuals, corporations, non-profits and other groups. BATS attracts students from all over the United States, and as far away as Australia, England, and Japan.

Additionally, BATS offers free improvisation classes through its “Laughing Stock” program to people living with HIV, AIDS, Hepatitis C, cancer, and other chronic, life-threatening illnesses, and to select care staf at area care centers. Classes focus on strengthening quality of life through humor, physical activity, group interaction, risk-taking, and imagination games.