With a knack for making things up as they went along, Newmyn’s
Nose prospered on campus. Over its nine year history the group
won its own gig at Don’t Tell Mama, a cabaret on 46th
Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in Manhattan, and won the
Stanislavsky open improv competition in 1994, but Asaf’s
nose twitched for something different; he had his own ideas.
So he left Newmyn’s Nose to form his own group, Hiatus
Improv, and four years later left his own group for the World
Wide Web. Unwilling to wait for the information superhighway
to build an exit ramp for improv, Asaf erected his our four-lane
freeway, YESand.com, an improv Web portal named after the
two-line premise behind all improvisation.
Improv Online
The site, designed for the most part by Asaf, has put him
in touch with a number of improv communities he never knew
existed. He says the majority of YESand.com’s readers
have just begun to form improv groups or have an interest
in learning about the art form.
“A lot of them are in cities that are not heavily populated
with improv. They don't have a Second City (Chicago) or a
Theatresports (Los
Angeles among other locales) or an ImprovOlympic (Chicago);
so they have lots of questions but no resource for the answers,"
Asaf says.
Enter Yesand.com. The site’s feature articles offer
advice on the craft of improvisation, tips on making improv
pay and admonitions toward thinking of improv as a part of
theatre. Meanwhile, the site’s bulletin board provides
open space for improvisers to share their ideas, talk about
what their concerns or make important connections.
“Kathleen (Puls) and I met on the YESand.com bulletin
board on the topic of the death of Madeline Kahn,” says
Susan Santaniello, a New
York-based improviser, of her first contact with Kathleen
Puls, a Chicago-based improviser.
The two artists kept talking long after conversation on Kahn’s
death ceased. By the exchange’s end, Susan and Kathleen
had founded Funny Women’s Festival, a weekend of workshops,
seminars and jams devoted to improvisation by women.
“We wanted to create an supportive, safe environment
where women could come together and work on comedy, improvisation,
stand-up and sketch,” Susan says. “We also promoted
the Fest shamelessly on [YESand] and Asaf kindly gave us a
free website for the Fest.”
Not satisfied with creating what Susan describes as “a
mecca for improvisers and comedians,” Asaf and fellow
New York improviser William McEvoy, principal member of the
Improvoholics, patiently planned a "yes and.." to
a YESand.com—an improv festival to take New York to improv’s
next level— the New York
Improv Festival (NYIF).
Part II: Improv Seeks Its Stage
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