The Fully Improvised Movie

The Fully Improvised Movie is at the Hideout Annex on Saturday, July 25. It's a collaborative, live piece of improvised cinema built with the audience, and the whole thing is guided by host and Hideout Artistic Director Roy Janik. He takes suggestions from the crowd for characters, plots, dialogue, and scenery, and from there the actors bring the story to life on the fly.

What makes it work is that it's not just people talking on a stage. The cast uses the tricks of real cinema to sell the story, with lighting and a soundtrack that shift along with the action. It's billed as a trim 90-minute movie, so it moves at a cinematic pace rather than dragging out like a long-form improv set. Since the audience provides the starting points, no two shows ever end up in the same place.

If you've never seen it, the format is pretty straightforward: Janik asks for a few prompts, and the actors build the scenes around them in real time. The lighting and sound follow the action, so a scene that starts in a quiet living room can shift to a rainy street or a crowded party without the actors ever leaving the stage. It's a full movie made up on the spot, and you get to help decide where it goes.

The show is at the Hideout Annex, 5555 N. Lamar Blvd. Unit B-103, in Austin Midtown. It runs for 90 minutes, and since it's built from audience suggestions, it's one of those nights where you're as much a part of the show as the people on stage.