Get ready, Cleveland — the kings of quick wit and spontaneous comedy are headed your way. Whose Live Anyway?, the uproarious live spin-off of the iconic improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, is making a stop at Playhouse Square on April 19. Featuring a powerhouse lineup including Ryan Stiles, Jeff B. Davis, Joel Murray, and the ever-dapper Greg Proops, the tour promises an evening of unscripted hilarity that puts audience suggestions center stage.
We caught up with Greg Proops—comedian, actor, podcaster, and walking encyclopedia of improv—to chat about the tour, what keeps the laughs fresh after all these years, and what Cleveland fans can expect when the lights go up and the script goes out the window.
Whose Live Anyway? seemingly never tours without stopping in Northeast Ohio – either at Akron Civic Theatre or Cleveland’s prized Playhouse Square district.
“Well, we love Cleveland, for one thing, of course. And oddly, or maybe not so oddly, [Cleveland native] Drew [Carey] put this group together in 1999. That was the first time we all played together, and then this is the millionth incarnation of it,” Proops said. “But we’ve been on the road for that long. Me and [fellow performer] Ryan [Stiles] have been working together in this group for, oh golly, now what are we onto here? 25 years? 26 years? So we play Ohio every year and probably Cleveland every other year, and it’s a sentimental place for us.“
As for what fans can expect at the show?
“It’s an improv show. That means we make up the comedy. So the audience comes and becomes an integral to the whole thing,” Proops explained. “First of all, we bring people on stage, and they join us doing improv. Secondly, we bring people on stage, and we sing to them and whatnot. It’s important to wear something you like. You might be in front of everybody, and you don’t want to be wearing the bowling shirt that has your name misspelled. We do improv like on the TV show ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ which means little improv games. We get suggestions from the audience about where we’ll be or who we are. Then, we play the games out. And then the games we play with the people, or we sing to people, and we play a game called Moving People, where we can’t move, and we’re puppets, and the people move us. There is a game called Sound Effects, where we can’t make any; we improvise a scene, and they have to do all the sound effects in the scene.”
Proops was part of the first incarnation of Who’s Line Is It Anyway ? on American television in 1998. Anybody who has held the same job for 20+ years, even if they love the work, knows the feeling of passion for their livelihood dipping at times, if not permanently! Even though Whose Live Anyway? is fresh each night, completely unscripted with a different city and different audience to entertain, it’s still the same job. This begs the question, how do Proops and his fellow performers maintain their passion for improv comedy each and every night?
“We still find each other funny, which is very fortunate,” he answered. “We don’t hate each other. We still speak to each other. We’ve got that going for us. When you’re in a group for a long time, sometimes the group is taking four separate cars to the gig or whatever. We still talk. We find each other wildly amusing, and we switch around the games so that we’re not playing the same thing every night. And also, the audience gives us different suggestions every night. So often, we’re surprised by what we get. And then the other thing is lately, because we’ve had a lot of people getting gigs on TV in and out of the group, we’ve had a lot of different special guests come in. I think we got Dave Foley from Kids in the Hall with us in Cleveland. You really never know who you’re going to get. Lately, this last month, we’ve been crazy with different people. We’ve had Dave Foley, we’ve had Kevin from Kids In the Hall as well, Chip Eston from Nashville, who’s an old Whose Live’r, we’ve had Anthony Williams; I’m sure I’m missing someone. I can’t promise Drew [Carey]. I don’t think he’ll be there.”
“This is the only job I’ve had, really, and it’s something I’ve always, always wanted to do, and I never got tired of it,” Proops continued. “I love playing in front of an audience. My wife will tell you when I don’t [work], I drive her crazy. And if I’m home for too long, she’s like, ‘Will you please go out and do a show?'”
The show is heavy (and dependent upon) audience participation. When they roll into Cleveland, they will be performing at the 3,000+ capacity KeyBank State Theatre, giving the performers an enormous pool of audience members to pick to help out with the show. When asked what the troupe looks for when picking an audience member to participate:
“I mean, just enthusiasm,” Proops simplified. “I think it’s funny how sometimes we ask people to join us on stage, and they walk as slowly as humanly possible. And I’m like, ‘How about some urgency?’ We’re not here all night. We’re not here until breakfast, so we have to make the show happen in an hour and a half here. But no, we just want people to have fun.”
Performing on television’s Who’s Line Is It Anyway? with his live troupe and the live version, Whose Live Anyway?, are different experiences. From our conversation, I had a suspicion that Proops prefers the latter.
“Very much so. I’m all about live performing,” he confirmed. “We do over a hundred dates a year with this group. I mean, when we leave you guys, we go all the way over the rest of the Midwest and Pennsylvania, blah, blah, blah. And then we go to the East Coast. So we tour after that. Like I said, we do a lot of dates. And then I also do standup, and I’m also in a show called The Nightmare Before Christmas, so I was in the movie, and we do that live at Halloween. We’re doing it at the Hollywood Bowl with a full symphony orchestra. I’m a big believer in live performing, and TV is fun, but it has limits. And when we’re taping, we have to stop and rearrange this and that. When we’re playing live, we just go for it. So I enjoy playing live more than anything else I do. It’s what keeps me going. I think you have to be kind of a kid. We really do play on stage. That’s why they call it playing. So you meet people, and they’re so grumpy, or they’ve got whatever’s going on with them, and I understand because everything’s so crazy. But you also have to remember that you can have fun and have an imagination and sort of lighten up. “
It’s an understatement to say we live in a divisive country (a divisive world, for that matter). Too many people are opinionated and love nothing more than to aggressively argue their opinions through any outlet possible. Much like a live concert or theater performance, Whose Live Anyway? give audience members an opportunity to forget about the world’s problems and enjoy some improv comedy, even if for a short time. This isn’t lost on the performers.
“We’re there to make people laugh. Yes, there are some political jokes, but it’s not really a political show; it’s an improv show,” Proops said. “If I was doing standup, it would be a different matter, then you’d have to hear my opinion for an hour and a half. But like I said, we are more audience-oriented, so we know that it’s the best part of their day. Let me put it that way: Because we don’t have to watch the news or be on social media, and for an hour and a half, we can clown, and sing, and jump around, it’s really a release for us. And it’s a real release for the audience, too. The audience really enjoys just having an hour and a half where the pressure of the world is not there; where you can just have fun!”
“I have discussions about this with my wife, and I can sit around and be depressed and mope, but my job is to make people laugh,” he continued. “I take that job on board, so I’m getting out there, and I’m really trying to get it on and have people have a great time. You know what I mean? That’s the most important thing. And I think you’re making yourself too important if you’re making yourself the center of the world. It’s really important to have a great time with people. And I think the thing about live shows is people really connect at a live show. Everyone’s on a bloody phone every minute of the day, you know what I mean? Or they’re in their car, or they’re shouting at each other. And this is a time to drop that and just be in a group, be with other people, and laugh. Not to put too much on it, but it’s kind of healing.”
Last, Proops was asked why Northeast Ohio fans should come to Cleveland on April 19 to see Whose Live Anyway?
‘It’s not like any other comedy show. It’s way more interactive, and it’s way more immediate and way more fun,” he said. “And you will remember it. Everybody who comes tells us afterward how hard they laugh for an hour and a half. We really, really give it our all. That’s my big sales pitch. Whatever you think it’s like from TV, it’s 10 times funnier.”
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