BROOKINGS For South Dakota native Bill Landsman, 47, who grew up on a farm near Elkton, life has been a circuitous national and international odyssey as he pursued and found the lifes calling he loves: improv improvisational theater.
The loose definition of improv is to make something up on the spot, Landsman explained in laymans terms. So you dont have a script. Normally, with a scripted play, you rehearse the scene, rehearse the lines. You know whats going to happen. With improv youre given maybe one suggestion and thats it. Then you have to make up a scene hopefully, a beginning, a middle and an end on the go.
A theme could be, we get a suggestion from the audience, Ill say, Whats something you bought at a convenience store in the last two days? Somebody in the audience might yell out, Snickers. So Snickers might be the loose theme for our scene and the theme. Could be the candy bar, could be someone snickering about someone or something.”
Simply and succinctly put: We make up stories on the fly, he said. Landsman now has his own company: Improvanopolis. He usually does his improv shows with a troupe of himself and four other guys calling themselves 6-OPE-5.
The troupe has done shows at Wooden Legs Brewing Company in Brookings and also in Pipestone, Elkton, Sioux Falls and other small communities. We love doing (shows) in small towns. We always love when we do get new people.
This (improv) is a style, Landsman points out. One thing that Im kind of particular about is the improv company theater; I think sometimes people think of (improv) more like stand-up (comedy). I like to think of it more as theater. We try to tell multiple stories throughout the course of the night; like a theater, youre the writer, the actor, the performer, the director all in one, all in the moment.
The genre is not particular and basically whatever and wherever the players and the audience take it.
Some games we ask for genres. But it comes out of the players, Landesman said. We do one game where we play Shakespeare-alphabet. So its in the style of Shakespeare. Sometimes its Western; other times it could be sy-fy, abstract. Thats what I love about it: All you need is a stage and an imagination. No set; its all imagination. And the troupe does communicate with its audience: We talk and I ask them questions, make suggestions.
Engineering to MFA
Following his graduation from Elkton High School in 1995, Landsman found his way to the University of Massachusetts (Lowell) where he graduated in 2001 with a bachelors degree in plastics engineering. Following graduation, his next stop was the Los Angeles area for his first job. On the side enrolled in an acting class at night and an improv class, where he decided this is what I want to do. He would later hone his theatrical talent with a master of fine arts in 2014, with a focus on classical acting and Shakespeare, from George Washington University (Washington, D.C.).
In addition to living in a variety of places in the United States, Landsman has been a bit of a globetrotter: He has lived in Dubai, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, where he spent five years on-and-off during 2009 and 2020.
That was all big shows, he said. However, he admitted to usually being on his own. He had stood up Improvanopolis in 2006 in Los Angeles: We were a group of actors who met on a different improv group, he explained. We decided we wanted to do our own. So we did Improvanopolis.
We kind of disbanded at some point. I ended up moving to Singapore. There was no improv going on and I wanted to keep doing it. So I started teaching, holding classes I rented a space and got people together from 2009 to 2011. We did seven shows back in 2011. His group got so good that Landsman put on more than 100 Improvanapolis shows during his stays in Singapore over the years.
He did one show in Australia before going off to get his master of fine arts degree. He would later return to Singapore in 2018. Then in 2020 COVID hit.
Everything shut down there, he explained. There was no getting together; and my job was to try to get people together, producing shows, a lot of people in a small space. I ended up moving back here. I didnt know when I was going to get back there; so I ended up starting a group here. Thats when we started Improvanopolis in the Brookings area.
Right now the five-man troupe is pulling everything together for Mistletoe Mayhem 2024, a Dinner and Improvanopolis Show set for Dec. 13 at the Dacotah Bank Center. The first Mistletoe gathering was in 2023.
This years festivities begin at 5 p.m. with a social hour, followed by dinner at 6 p.m. and the improv show at 7 p.m. For tickets, prices and other particular information, go to the Dacotach Bank Center website and find Events & Tickets. It will tell you all you need to know.
As to the audience for the show, Landsman says 18 and older. We try to keep it clean, he said. I would say the audience will sometimes go a little more what we call blue, a term in the industry. It doesnt happen all the time.
The Dacotah Bank Center site says: This event caters exclusively to guests aged 18 and above. Please be aware that the evening is intended for mature audiences only.
In addition to the dinner and a show on Dec. 13, Landsman and his fellow 6-OPE-5 guys are looking to a thank you, pay what you will show at Wooden Legs on Dec. 19.
As to the future, Landsman still wants to get into Shakespeare in the park and he wants to tell stories, all the time.
Contact John Kubal at [email protected].
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