Mr. Gad's House of Improv is pleased to present the transcript of an important historical document found, through arduous scholarship, in the Undelivered Mail Archives in the Special Collection of Frost Library.
Unfortunately, we cannot confirm its provenance.
In the Spring semester of 1988, the English and Theater departments offerred up a little seminar called English/Theater 86 - Comedy. Taught by professor Doug Anderson, this class attempted (somewhat unsuccessfully, IMHO) to discover why things are funny. At one point, a class on improv was held, and I, who had some experience with improv, and Erin Ash, '91, volunteered to help with the class - doing some games.
That individual class session sparked something in me, and I went to Michael Birtwhistle, chair of the Theater and Dance department, to discuss the possibility of starting a group at Amherst. He wasn't very high on the idea and basically talked me out of it.
Little did I know that Erin, and Mark Alschuler, '90, had also been contemplating the same idea, and over the summer, we contacted each other to discuss doing this in the fall.
When the fall semester of 1988 rolled around, the three of us got together to discuss how to start up a group. Erin had to drop out of the whole thing because of other time committments (she was in the Sabrinas), so it was left to Mark and I to get it off the ground.
Excitedly, we had some auditions. The response was great! We had over 30 people come for that first set of auditions. At this point, we were the Amherst Improv Project, figuring that we'd decide on a name at a later date. After auditions and call backs, we began the group with a roster of 8, including Mark and I. The others were Kennan Ferguson, '90, Sasha Barnes, '91, Margot Roth, '90, Beth Richman, '91, David Sanger, '92 and Susanna Merritt - a 12-college exchange student from Vassar.
We got together and started playing some games a couple of times a week - in whatever Fayerwhether space we could find.
And we decided to get a formal name. Each member was assigned the task of coming back with some names that we would vote on. I still have the original lists, including some rather silly names, but after discussion, we narrowed the list down to three finalists -
For one whole day.
At our next "rehearsal", some disatisfaction with ITM was voiced, and we decided that whatever name we chose, it had to be unanimous. And so it was, and during the next three hours, we did little rehearsing and a lot of brainstorming. Several members (myself included) wanted to have Improv in the name, somewhere. Others wanted something that could be tossed around easily in conversation. For a while, the name almost became "Free Beer" - as in "Free Beer in the Frontroom Friday night".
Finally, about 11:45, Sasha Barnes came out with Mr. Gad as a name to attach to some improv-thing, and the House was born.
Mr. Gad's House of Improv was perfect - for it could be shortened to the familiar "Gad's" and had all sorts of silly puns and stuff which could be used (for example, hard-core fans came to be known as Gad-flies) to amuse ourselves.
Know this - Mr. Gad means something. I can't tell you, however, since we made a pact. And, even though I'm not the best at keeping secrets, I have kept this one. If anyone's told - it sure wasn't me. The pact is that the last one of the original 8 who's still alive (and, as far as I know, we haven't lost anyone, yet) is supposed to go back to Amherst and tell them what it means. Of course, in 2050 (or whatever) it won't mean much of anything, but, hey, we were head-strong college kids.
So - there you have it. We continued to rehearse and then had our first performances, but that's the story of the origins of the House.
Share and Enjoy.
Daniel Banyas
Co-Founder and Overall Funny Guy (or so I've been told)