TJ & Dave
Chicago is the mecca of comedy in the world. Institutions such as The Second City and iO have been the hallowed ground for comedians and actors. For fifty-four years, several people have done this art form that they created and perfected with a set of rules of doing it right (“yes and...”, don’t say no, don’t talk about what you’re doing, there mistakes, taking suggestions from the audience). If there is any show that is worth seeing in Chicago, whether it is sketch or improv, it is TJ & Dave. These guys, who are probably the best improvisers in Chicago, come up and they do the same improv format, but they give it a twist. They take no suggestions from the audience, they say no in their scenes, but they manage to keep the scene moving.
Both TJ & Dave live in Chicago and have studied with the legendary improv teacher Del Close. An alumni of Second City, iO, and Annoyance Theater, Chicago native Dave Pasquesi performed in Second City’s mainstage cast with Chris Farley and Tim Meadows. Since then, he has worked in film (“Father of The Bride,” “Groundhog Day,” “Angels & Demons”), television (“Strangers With Candy”), and theater. An alumni of Second City and iO, Massachusetts-born TJ Jagodowski has done film (“The Ice Harvest,” “Stranger Than Fiction”), television (“Prison Break”), and commercials (Sonic Drive-In commercials). He occasionally teaches improv at iO. The two improvisers met in the late-1990s at an improv festival and that was the first time they played together onstage. Shortly after that, Jagodowski went up to Pasquesi and asked him if they wanted to do improv shows together and Pasquesi said yes. Since 2002, the two performers joined forces and do weekly performances at iO on Wednesday nights at 11 pm, as well as once a month performances in New York City at the Barrow Street Theater. Yes, their shows at iO are very late in the day on a Wednesday night, but they are totally worth seeing. The duo and their show is the subject of the Alex Karpovsky documentary “Trust Us, This Is All Made Up,” which premiered at the South By Southwest Film Festival in 2009. Both TJ & Dave have been honored by the Chicago Improv Festival as “Improviser of the Year.”
The lights go out at 11 playing to the music of Ike Reilly. After a couple minutes into the song, TJ & Dave walk on stage. The stage in iO is one of two theaters, one is upstairs with a large stage, the other is a small cabaret style theater with a stage the size of a postage stamp. As the music stops, TJ says, “Hello, everyone! This is David Pasquesi.” Then, Dave says, “And this is TJ Jagodowski.” Then, TJ says, “Thank you all for being here. We look forward to improvising for you. Trust us, this is all made up.” Then, there is a blackout. The two improvisers get into position and they just take it away.
Their show is basically a one-act play. They play specific types of characters in different situations and there are constant call-backs of things that were mentioned in previous scenes a couple minutes before. They will keep building throughout a night and constant hilarity ensues. When I saw them, they mentioned a girlfriend and crackers (the food, not the racial slur), then ten minutes later, after doing a couple more scenes, TJ suddenly goes, “Why do do we have so many crackers? Jane constantly brings back all of these crackers. I mean, she doesn’t even live hear!” The show usually lasts from fifty minutes to an hour and fifteen minutes.
TJ & Dave are amazing to watch from an audience perspective. I have studied at Second City since I was sixteen and we were taught how to play by the rules of improv (“yes and...”, never say no in a scene, don’t talk about what you are doing, etc.). However, what is exciting about watching these guys is that they break all of the rules, but at the same time they are able to push the scene forward. That is pretty risky, but they are constantly doing something different and that is why they take so many risks because they both trust each other and the audience wonders where they might go next. Their humor is really smart and they are constantly listening to each other. Many times, when one person plays a character on stage, the other person will play that same character later on and they will both switch off with the characters.
In a regular improv show, the performers usually ask for a suggestion of an object or location. But in TJ & Dave, they don’t take any suggestions. All they say is “Trust us, this is all made up.” These guys are professionals and you should be able to trust the professionals because they have practiced and know everything that they are doing. However, there is something exciting about not taking suggestions because that way you are not held back by what you are trying to explore. Without taking a suggestion from the audience, you are able to transform and create any character and situation that you want.
What truly makes TJ & Dave exciting to watch is the relationship between the two of them. They trust each other 100% both personally and professionally. With that, all of the amazing characters and scenes come to life onstage. Even when they don’t have a good night, they still put on a heck of a show. If TJ & Dave had not gotten along with each other or trusted each other, then the show would be completely different and they probably would never have been together in the first place. It is truly great that these two amazing improvisers came together at a time where they wanted to do nothing but improvise and have fun on stage. What happens between them is pure magic.
While doing some research, there had to be some show that could match the power and talent of TJ & Dave. As a result, the easiest way to go was to stop at Second City to check out an improv show. The show was The Improv All-Stars. The show features the best of the best of Second City’s current performers while they participate in an improv show filled with short form games and audience participation.
The games were all fun and all of the performers showed that there was a way to making everything work for each other, even when there was something extremely out of the ordinary. All of the games lasted about five minutes long and there was also a little bit of musical improv in there to show how rounded that they are professionally and and an improv show is always fun when there is music in it. However, the only problem that there was was with some of the audience members. During the show, one of the improvisers asked the audience for a suggestion of “something that you said to someone today.” Immediately, someone in the audience shouted out, “Go fuck yourself!” People think it is funny to swear in comedy, but it’s way too easy to get laughs by using bad language. Sometimes, the audience would use very dirty suggestions just because they will think it will be able to get a ton of laughs. The good thing is that the performers didn’t pick some of the more vulgar suggestions from the audience, instead they picked things that would really work on the stage and would help the performers create something original and experimental. The show lasted one hour.
All of the performers in The Improv All-Stars were very strong performers and they all created something great. One of the performers was Rachael Mason, who also studied with Del Close and I had as a teacher at Second City. She once told me, “When I do an improv show, I start at a 2. As the show goes on, I will raise up my energy level when I need to go all the way.” Well, she did exactly that. Not only did she do well, but so did the rest of the improvisers. Each one was funny and created scenes featuring characters that knew each other and it felt believable to see that the improvisers knew each other very well.
The idea of improv is to say “yes.” If you don’t say “yes,” then you’ve basically killed the scene and there is nothing left for you to do. The only way you can push the scene forward is by saying, “yes and..” then you simply add something on to what the other person just said. For example, if someone says, “I brought you a banana” and you say, “No, that is not an apple,” then you are screwed and you are done. But, the idea is to accept it for your own by saying, “Let’s cut up this banana and put in a banana split for our father.” So, basically, there is the idea of “yes and...” and it is THE golden rule of improvisation. The bonus is that there are no mistakes in improv. If you make a mistake, go with it because it can become something else. For example, if you say, “I brought you a banana,” and you said, “This is a beautiful apple,” then you’ve changed the scene completely and you go with doing that scene. You can’t stop and start over, but what what you can do is go with what you’ve been given because it is a gift that you can explore for a very long time.
TJ & Dave do “yes and...” each other the whole time that they are onstage. However, there will be times where they say no, but they are able to keep the scene moving forward. The scene doesn’t die when they say no because they trust each other so well and they want to keep the scenes going forward. It’s like what Dave Pasquesi said about his communication with Jagadowski, “We have this trust that no matter what I say to you, you’re going to be fine. You’re really good and there is no way I can hurt you.”
Both TJ & Dave and the Improv All-Stars are awesome shows to see in Chicago, however they are both two completely different types of improvisation. The Improv All-Stars are short form improv. TJ & Dave are long form improv. The difference between the two styles are completely noticeable. Short form improv is about the short games that you would play in a regular show. The games would usually take about five to eight minutes depending on how long the performers go on for. The games will end when someone hits the lights during a show. Long form improv is simply improv that goes on for long periods of time. However, it is the performer’s job to be prepared to create another scene or a different character.
The only thing that can be a hinderance to an improv show is the audience. Sometimes, the audience want to hear nothing but sex jokes and swearing and stuff like that which is why people will sometimes shout out crude suggestions. However, that is not what improv comedy is about. It is about being honest and true in the moment on stage. After a while, the sex jokes and swearing get old after a little while. This can make an improv performance go bad because you are basically no longer listening to your scene partner and the scene is destroyed. TJ & Dave avoid all of this stuff 100%. They will never use this area because its a guilty excuse to be funny and its too easy to get laughs this way. You can always tell when something isn’t funny because people won’t laugh at it. Sometimes, when the comedy goes wrong, it can be very hard to bring the audience back into the performance. John Cleese once said, “Comedy is incredibly brittle. If something goes wrong with the atmosphere, you’re dead.”
In improvisation, everything is unscripted. Nothing is planned and there is no deciding want to do. All they have to do is listen yo each other, connect to each other, and go with the flow. Out of that is whee the creativity comes from. The idea of unscripted theater is fantastic because there is so much freedom where you can do anything you want and you can explore it for as long as you want. However, another downside of improvisation is when you start thinking too much. Thinking too much is the biggest of all the downfalls in improvisation because it shows that you not paying attention to what you are doing in the scene. It’s pretty painful to watch people who are stuck in their heads while improvising because it shows that they are trying to be the show-off. TJ & Dave do not think of anything when they improvise. All they do is say “yes and...” and they listen to each other and the funny eventually comes.
Thinking is simply one of the things that can slow down improvised show. These are the people who come up with these clever jokes in their heads and they get the big huge laughs. Improvisation does not work that way. TJ & Dave studied with Del Close, who is one of the original founders of The Second City and iO. From Second City’s founding in 1959 until his death in 1999, he taught many of the most well-known talent to come out of Second City and iO, such as Bill Murray, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Tina Fey, Chris Farley, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carrell, and the list goes on and on. He would get very mad at people who would come up with funny things in their heads. He would refer to these actions as “trying to be cute.” Harold Ramis told this story about when he started out at Second City and Close was his director. During improv shows, he would come up with these smart jokes onstage. He did this a number of times and then Close pulled him aside after a show and said to him, “Someday, you are going to look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m so cute and I’m only forty-five years old.’” Ramis said that that “sobered him up.” The reason why is because there is more than just scoring with the audience and it was not about just getting the laugh. As former students of Close, TJ & Dave know this idea. It’s not always about getting the laugh because sometimes improv isn’t always funny. Instead, these guys take their time until there is a laugh from the audience. There was definitely no moment in the show where they were “trying to be cute,” as Del Close would put it. If improvisers try coming up with smart jokes, they might as well start doing stand-up because a lot of improvisers hate when other improvisers do that.
Close taught that “if you concentrate on making everyone around you look good, then at the same time it makes everyone look good.” TJ & Dave definitely make each other look good during their performance. They trust each other completely. There is something admirable about how they interact with each other on stage because it shows that they can throw anything at each other and they will be able to pull anything off. Not only do they know each other very well personally, but they know each other very well professionally. It all shows in their performance. TJ Jagodowski once said, “We don’t know anything until we look at each other and then we start to know anything.” That simply describes how strong their chemistry is onstage. Improv is all about the chemistry between the performers. Whether the performers like each other or not, they will still be able to connect with each other and create multiple scenes to entertain an audience.
I know several people who have gone to see TJ & Dave and everyone I’ve talked to has said that they are amazing. As for people who had not seen TJ & Dave before, they’ve got to the shows and they didn’t even know that they were improvising. They though that the whole thing was going to be scripted. However, here is the truth: 0% of their show is scripted, 100% of it is all improvised. The bonus is that every performance that these guys do is completely different every single time. People who have not seen them will find them to be entertaining because they perform at such great speed and confidence that it would excite the audience to possibly take up doing improvisation as a hobby.
When it comes to figuring out which of the two shows were better is difficult to say. All of the performers were very entertaining to watch. However, TJ & Dave reign supreme. They don’t take suggestions from the audience so they just go ahead and do it. Their motto is “Trust us, this is all made up” so all they really want you to do is trust where the performance is going to go. The performers in the Improv All-Stars were all great, but the audience participation was occasionally a bit of a hinderance when it came to asking for specific suggestions. At the same time, however, they are both two completely different shows and styles. They are both great, but when it comes to performance and originality, TJ & Dave win this competition.
Since 2002, TJ & Dave have shown that improv shows are exciting to watch and that you don’t have to follow the rules to perform improv on stage. They are rebellious and they are a constant inspiration to aspiring improvisers all over Chicago. While they’ve shown that they trust each other completely, they also allow the audience to trust what they do on stage night after night. TJ & Dave are truly amazing.
