The Improv Shop is moving in upstairs at miniBar
For the past several years, the second floor of midtown’s miniBar (3810 Broadway) has functioned as a sort of DIY club, regularly hosting punk and rock shows in a grungy space sometimes referred to as the Disaster Room, or the “basement upstairs.”
As of this weekend, it’ll also be the new Kansas City home of The Improv Shop, a comedy theater and training center based in St. Louis. (Think UCB.) The outfit will hold classes in the space on Sundays (when miniBar is closed) and perform shows there four weekend nights a month. The first of those shows is this Saturday, October 6.
Kevin McKernan, who founded The Improv Shop nine years ago, says the expansion into Kansas City — its first foray outside St. Louis — will be slow and steady, not unlike the way it grew in St. Louis.
“Here [in STL], we started out in places like miniBar, squatting in spaces on top of bars,” McKernan tells The Pitch. “Then we kind of grew organically — and, honestly, beyond my wildest dreams. We leased a building, then we bought one, and now we have a full bar and kitchen, classes, and shows five nights a week.”
He continues: “We had two of our guys move to Kansas City a while back, and we had the idea that it might be cool to develop a presence there. So we were looking at places to lease in Kansas City. But then I thought maybe that was too risky. So we took a step back and decided to do it more like how we did in St. Louis. And, pretty quickly, miniBar’s upstairs emerged as a place that seemed like it might work for what we wanted to do.”
Steve Tulipana, co-owner of miniBar, says he and the crew at miniBar have been making renovations upstairs in recent months — they’ve built a proper stage, installed changeable lighting, pushed the bar up against a wall, and are currently in the midst of a re-do on the bathrooms. More aesthetic changes are on the way over the coming months.
“They [The Improv Shop] gave us a boost to do things we’ve been talking about for a long time,” Tulipana says. “Everyone we’ve worked with so far from [their] team has been super professional, great communicators, and hard working. We are really excited about the partnership.”
There is already some improv comedy around midtown. ComedyCity, in the Uptown Shoppes, and the KC Improv Company, in Westport, host shows on Friday and Saturday nights. But McKernan says he thinks there’s room for something like The Improv Shop in KC.
“There’s already a bunch of independent [improv] teams there, and our goal is to hopefully consolidate that energy and try to build a community of people who want to independently produce shows,” he says. “Right now, it seems like it’s this scattershot thing, where they do shows at places like the Buffalo Room and go to another venue the next time. So one part is just to give them a home base. We’ve found that having a home base where you’re comfortable putting on shows is important for performers. That’s when you start to experiment and grow.”
McKernan also sees The Improv Shop’s expertise in longform improvisation as a differentiating factor.
“We’ve been doing this for a long time in St. Louis, so we have these teachers and players who really know what they’re doing,” he says. “So the idea is to kind of share those resources, and hopefully have a back-and-forth type of thing going between the two cities.”
You can already purchase tickets for the first three weeks of shows — all shows are $6 — and McKernan says they’ve got several more weeks of programming planned out as well. If you’re interested in classes, you can learn more at The Improv Shop’s website, which will be updated soon to include information about KC-related goings-on.
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The Improv Shop’s grand opening is this Saturday, October 6, and features U People, Babies, and Ham Kitty. Show details here.
