The Improv Centre mines classic TV-comedy tropes for yuletide yuks in ’Tis the Sitcom
Jacki Gunn and Alan Pavlakovic say the new seasonal show will evoke Friends, 30 Rock, and more
(Left to right) ’Tis the Sitcom’s Jacki Gunn, Raf Rogers, Mary Saunders, Jeff Cooper, Jenny Rubé, and Chris Casillan.
The Improv Centre presents ’Tis the Sitcom on Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 pm from November 21 to December 30, with 2 pm matinee performances on December 14, 21, 24, and 28. A special opening-night performance takes place on November 20
REMEMBER THAT Seinfeld episode where the gang converges on the Costanza household to celebrate Festivus—a holiday of Frank Costanza’s own devising—complete with the traditional “airing of grievances” and “feats of strength”?
Or how about that moment on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia when Charlie realizes that all of the cherished Christmas gifts of his youth were paid for by his mom supplying jolly old St. Nick with a little extra special yuletide cheer? (It was sex. The extra special yuletide cheer was sex.)
The holiday episode is a TV sitcom staple, and everyone has their personal favourite. For The Improv Centre’s artistic director, Alan Pavlakovic, it’s “Secret Santa”, a 2009 episode of 30 Rock—especially the scene in which Danny (guest star Cheyenne Jackson) intentionally sings off-key to make Jenna feel more confident in her own vocal abilities.
On a joint call with Pavlakovic, Jacki Gunn tells Stir that her perennial pick is “The One With the Holiday Armadillo”, a 2000 episode of Friends. “The moment where Ross is forced to wear an armadillo costume is pretty iconic,” Gunn says.
The Improv Centre is mounting its very own holiday special this year, in the form of ’Tis the Sitcom, which lovingly satirizes the sort of TV comedies that focus on groups of friends, roommates, and/or co-workers in urban settings. Think all of the aforementioned shows, plus The Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, et al.
“We all kind of inherently know the dynamics and the archetypes, so this show is an ode to those sitcoms,” explains Gunn, who created ’Tis the Sitcom. “The show is going to run as if you were turning on the TV in the early 2000s and flipping through channels—that whole experience—and then landed on this holiday episode of one of those classic sitcoms.”
Gunn says that audience prompts and the dynamics of a constantly rotating cast of improv-comedy experts will determine precisely what happens at any given performance.
“Off the top of the show we’re getting a lot of inspiration from our audience that will basically decide what the sitcom’s going to be,” she says. “Every single show will be a brand-new cast making up a brand-new sitcom on the spot and trying to give it that feeling, like it’s been running for five seasons or whatever.”
As for how The Improv Centre’s cast and crew will deliver a live performance that feels like a television broadcast, Pavlakovic promises commercial breaks, classic sitcom sound cues, and a few surprises.
“We’re super, super lucky in our theatre to have an amazing technical improvising team,” Gunn adds, “and the facility that we need to be able to put on a high-production-value show. So we’re really taking advantage of that. We’re pushing it to its max for this show, using our stage and our audio-visual capabilities to make this feel like a satirical episode of a sitcom. That’s how we’re really immersing our audience. And also, we’re leaning really heavily into sitcom archetypes of all kinds, and every show will be completely different, but coloured with the same flavour.”
Yes, Gunn really did say “coloured with the same flavour”, and no, Pavlakovic did not hesitate to rib her for that synaesthetic mixed metaphor. In the world of improv comedy, when you see an opportunity to get a laugh, you’re practically obligated to go for it.
The talented improv pros who will be bringing ’Tis the Sitcom to life know this well, but they also know when it’s appropriate to rein it in and keep things family-friendly. So maybe not so much in the It’s Always Sunny vein after all.
“When we do a show that’s based off of The Traitors or based off The Bachelor or something like that, it tends to have maybe more adult themes,” Pavlakovic notes. “But when we’re parodying something like a sitcom, there are some things that are already laid out for us that we just need to capitalize on.
“Being that this is sitcom, family-friendly, and holiday-themed, we do really want it to be accessible,” he continues. “We don’t normally do matinees, but through December we’re gonna have a whole bunch of matinees, and they’re going to be just as popular, if not more popular than some of our evening shows, because that’s when grandparents and grandkids are available. When your family’s coming to visit and you don’t want to just have another meal, you don’t just want to go to a bar, or it’s too cold to walk around outside, you can still really experience that kind of seasonal joy with us, inside.”
Live comedy that the whole family can enjoy? Sounds like a Festivus miracle! 
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