ALUMNI STORIES
The Church of Improv
Schrodinger’s Cat troupe helps audience work through the uncomfortable
F
or Doug Holley (BA English, 2010),
laughing together is powerful. As a player,
former director, and founding member
of the improv comedy troupe Schrodinger’s
Cat, Holley has been making Augusta audiences
laugh for a decade. But all joking aside, his
commitment to the group stems from faith in
the serious benefits it offers for the cast and their
audience.
“I consider going to theatre like going to
church,” he says. “It serves the purpose of
bringing a disparate people into one accord and
encouraging them to pursue the same goal: to
giggle, to laugh, and be moved by the comedy.”
Holley observes that “people today seem
disengaged and distracted,” as well as divided
politically. They find it increasingly difficult to
connect. But improv can be unusually effective
at facilitating connections.
“When we’re performing on stage together,”
Holley says, “the cast and even the people in the
audience are family. There’s something about
the close intimacy of being next to people—being
close enough that you can touch the actors—that
fosters a sense of togetherness.”
Much of improv’s appeal owes to the
spontaneity and novelty of each performance.
“We do two shows every First Friday, but
they’re never the same show twice,” Holley
explains.
Even the actors don’t know what will happen
next. Holley believes that’s what makes it so
riveting, even for people with short attention
spans: “You can’t help but be engaged when
everything you’re seeing, hearing, and saying is
new. Everybody’s hanging on the next word—the
cast as well as the audience—because nobody
knows what the next word is. It’s not a play
you’ve seen before like Shakespeare or Tennessee
Williams. It’s not something you can quote.”
It seems fitting that Schrodinger’s Cat also
came together by chance. Holley credits its
beginning to a small group of people who were
serious about acting and experienced in the
theatre community, but wanted to do something
different.
14 | #WeArePamplin · Spring 2019
“I consider going to theatre like going to church. It serves
the purpose of bringing a disparate people into one accord
and encouraging them to pursue the same goal: to giggle,
to laugh, and be moved by the comedy.”
– Doug Holley
BA English, 2010
“We were at a party one night and got talking
about it. I suggested we play some improv
games, so we spent the rest of the evening
playing the kind of games you see on Who’s Line
is It Anyway?”
When the idea later evolved to forming their
own troupe, Holley joined in from the very
first show. Ten years later, Schrodinger’s Cat
is going strong, with two performances every
First Friday of the month. For Holley, the group
has done more for him, and does more for the
community, than entertain.
“The biggest thing we do for Augusta,” he
says, “is provide an inclusive and safe space for
people to enjoy themselves without worrying
about looking over their shoulders.”
This inclusivity and special actor/audience
dynamic has led to some fairly remarkable
occurrences. For example, one night an audience
member came on stage as a volunteer. As soon
as the sketch ended, he asked if he could say
something.
“We let him,” Holley recalls, “and right there
he came out to his dad as transgender—as in, ‘I’m
not a girl who dresses like a boy; I’m a boy that’s
been in this body my whole life and it’s time for
me to make a real transition.’ He walked back to
the audience, his dad stood up and hugged him,
and everybody cheered. It was beautiful.”
But that’s not the end of the story. A skillful
raconteur, Holley pauses for effect and then
raises the stakes: “And then we had to make
jokes about it. We had to make comedy around
that because we were just getting started. It was
our first sketch of the night.”
Some might think it inappropriate to joke
about the uncomfortable or the deeply personal,
but Holley sees it differently.
“Comedy exists in the truth—in the realization
of truth in uncomfortable or inconvenient
moments,” he explains. “We got to play with
the uncomfortableness of the situation, with
the family dynamic, with the idea of revealing a
secret. The jokes were never about the boy; the
jokes were about how fraught the situation was
with pitfalls, with potential for discrimination
and ugliness and nastiness, but it turned it into
this really funny, beautiful thing. We made
legitimate, clean, respectful, woke comedy.”
Holley sees that improv’s ability to cheer
and connect people may hold especially strong
appeal for those in pain—an appeal that has even
shaped the membership of the cast.
“We had a young man who, at 16, came to
see us while he was at a low point in his life,”
Holley recalls. “He was having a hard time, but
he told us that seeing us up on stage—the quality
of our work, but also the love and joy we were
having—he said, ‘I need to be part of that.’ So
he started coming to the open rehearsals and,
within a few months, he was a part of the group.
To see him today, he’s fantastic. I’m proud of
him.”
For Holley, working through uncomfortable
truths together is therapeutic for cast and
audience alike.
Continues on page 16