Still Laughing WYMPROV! just keeps going and going BY SUZI STEFFEN It was a cold December at One Common Thread Coffeehouse in 1991. The four members of the new improv comedy troupe WYMPROV!, Debby Martin, Enid Lefton, Sally Sheklow and Vicki Silvers, thought they'd be performing a one-off event as the only ones brave enough to go on stage out of a larger group of women who had attended a comedy workshop called "Healing with Humor." WYMPROV! is (clockwise from upper left): Vicki Silvers, Enid Lefton, Debby Martin and Sally Sheklow Sheklow wasn't new to the stage, having recently come from performing a spoof called "The Sound of Lesbians" in which Maria von Trapp became a sex therapist from Veneta. Martin, on the other hand, wasn't quite as relaxed as she hoped. Things were going well; the mostly lesbian audience at the women's coffeehouse was forgiving and affectionate, wanting the performers to succeed. Then Martin began a skit called "Occupation," in which the other three members went into "a soundproof booth" (they put their fingers in their ears and sing) while the audience picked a job for them. Martin, as a TV host, had to interview the other three, who didn't know what kind of work they did and had to figure it out as the skit went on. One audience wag called out "chicken plucker," and Martin agreed, gleefully anticipating the questions she could ask the others. She signaled to them that they could exit the soundproof booth. Everything was perfect — and then she said to the audience, "And please welcome our chicken pluckers!" Whoops! Do-over. Fifteen years later, with hundreds of performances in Oregon and the chicken pluckers but a gentle memory, the troupe takes advantage of Springfield's beautifully renovated Wildish Theater to celebrate its anniversary. WYMPROV! is unusual because all of the members are women — something that Martin says they discovered can be an advantage when they attended comedy conferences like the Funny Women Fest in Chicago. For one thing, they don't get as limited to gender roles; they can play women or men, depending on the audience's whim. And those roles aren't as constrained. "Women who do improv with men have a lot of issues we don't have to deal with," she says. "You always say yes to the roles you get offered [by the audience], but you usually get the wife or the whore if you're a woman. It's not the same for WYMPROV!" Of course, the original audience of lesbian feminists wasn't likely to cast the women in those roles, but after several years of performing at Eugene-Springfield Pride celebrations and in PFLAG shows, the group expanded its audience at the Eugene Celebration in 1995. "Doing the Eugene Celebration really formed our fan base and got us going," Martin says. "We got huge crowds at the Celebration. It's one of our favorite gigs to do, and it's a rowdy crowd." In the years since the troupe began performing, the popularity of improv has come and gone. "When we first started doing it, nobody had heard of comedy improv," Martin says. After the television show Whose Line Is It, Anyway? took off and comedian Wayne Brady became more popular, WYMPROV! got more and more gigs. Things are calmer now, Martin says, but comedy improv is doing well in Eugene, with Latenite at the Lord Leebrick picking up where Comedy Sportz left off. One popular WYMPROV! show, legendary as a Valentine's Day piece, is the skit "How We First Met." The piece originated with a group in San Francisco and has been picked up by improv groups across the country. In Eugene, brave couples from the audience head to the stage and tell the story of their meeting … until a WYMPROV! member yells "Scene!" Then it's time for re-enacting what they described, "with a slightly different, WYMPROV! twist," Martin says. "People are really on your side when you get up and do improvisation because they are amazed that you're doing it," Martin says. And when they're not performing, the four women (Lefton and Sheklow are partners) enjoy getting together and hanging out. "We've become really good friends," Martin says, "We have a good time when we get together and rehearse, and that laughter in your life is a really cool thing." And after 15 years, the troupe isn't afraid of a little laughter — even at their mistakes. At the 10th birthday party show, an audience member brought a gift-wrapped brick, and for the 15th birthday party, the troupe is inviting the audience to bring bizarre birthday gifts that will be converted into skits. But please, leave any unplucked chickens at home.    WYMPROV! 15th Birthday Show. 8 pm Saturday, 12/2. Wildish Theater • $15
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