Artist Story: Mark Sutton

You know how some people seem to always have really ridiculous things happen to them?  Do comedians have different experiences than normal …. or do they just see normal things in a different way?

I’ve joked with other improv actors that we see the same thing other people see, but when we react to it or retell it, we just take it seven steps further. We just can’t let it go until we’ve tried to use all the funny.

First of all, I didn’t plan on being funny for a living.  In college, I studied radio broadcasting, but my friends pushed me toward the stage, saying I could tell a great story, and two decades later, I’m still telling stories and still trying to use up all the funny.

Seriously Funny
Because improv is so immediate, I can find material for my shows literally everywhere. One of the other things I love about my job is that “people watching” is a job requirement. It’s a 24-hours-a-day thing.   And, people are funny… seriously funny.  Listening to what they say, noting how they’ve said it and watching them react to one another: it can be unbelievable even when it is happening right in front of you.  And, that fine line between lunacy and reality is the constant tension -- exactly what  I feel when I’m improvising.
Since we don’t rehearse it’s up to me to get myself ready for the show and I’ve developed a few rituals. When I travel to an improv festival, I buy four magazines at the airport: Newsweek, Time, Star and People. I want the worldview and the celebrity gossip. I want music album reviews. I want to know who just checked them in to a spa for “exhaustion”.  And, I want some political fuel and a special report on health around the globe.

I’m always trying to ingest the benign, the odd, the humorously real.  I often tell people that I’m a master of useless information.  But it’s useful to me all the time. I once read a story about a woman with a 200-pound tumor on her back – and I didn’t know how, but I knew eventually, that would make it into a show. It’s just too vivid to not talk about.  When we wove it into a BASSPROV show, it really worked. People still tell me that was memorable.  Many of them couldn’t believe they laughed at something like that…but they did.  It was horrifying…but also, in the way we presented it, funny.

Fear Factor
I have encountered so many people over the years who have told me they’d be terrified to improvise. There may only be two schools of thought on the concept of improv: fear or fascination.  

Of course, the fear makes sense since that moment on stage embraces the unknown.   But while most people think the fear would stop them…good performers know that the fear can be controlled and used to your advantage.

Think about it…don’t we all improvise all day? Isn’t that exactly what life is? We act, interact, speak, think, decide, love, enjoy, mourn and invest… all without a script?

For more than two decades of my life, I have performed in thousands  of shows, coached countless people at various steps in their improv training and sat in the audience at shows all over the country and in all these scenarios, over all these years, the artform of improvisation never has lost my attention.

A Hometown Artform
Today, so much more so than 25 years ago, people are really celebrating improv as the thoughtful artform it is and I am happy about that. It is theater without a script. And, in its best form, (and there is a wealth of Chicago improv talent doing it really, really well) it creates something – moment by moment – that people want to experience.
Improv may be the great Chicago artform. This city also is the best place I can think of to be an artist, because of the sheer number of performance opportunities and the enthusiastic audiences. But, it also is a great place to have a life and a family, which is as important to me as my craft.

Chicago audiences are really curious, for the most part. They want to be entertained, engaged, and challenged.  So, there is always a great collaboration between performers and audiences here. People come out to see what will happen next when improvisers make something from nothing.  The Chicago Improv Festival and several local improv theaters have been a continued success because of that fact.

The best performers are generally the kindest people
I have traveled around the country performing, teaching, leading workshops and watching people perform, and one thing I have learned is that, more often than not,  the guy that’s the funniest on stage is also the coolest guy to hang out with after the show.   The next time you see someone nail it on stage, make sure you talk to him after the show. I’ve noticed that content and successful artists have one thing in common: they take the work seriously, but they do not take themselves too seriously. People who have something to prove are usually doing that on stage and off.

What’s next?
There will always be exceptional comedic talent in Chicago, so I think the audiences are a bit spoiled, which sets the bar higher for performers.  And, it constantly has me thinking, “What can I give the audience that will surprise them and make them want more?” I guess that’s the benefit of being a professional artist, you get to think, “What else do I want to do? How else can I push my own limits and creativity.”  It’s something that’s constantly renewing.

I like to think that every moment on stage is a concentrated moment from life and if you play the truth of it, and the humanity of it you’ll have success. Which makes a compliment such as “I didn’t believe that was improvised!” all the more important!

Mark Sutton has been acting, directing and teaching in Chicago since 1987.  He is a founding member of the acclaimed Annoyance Theater and has appeared in more than 75 Annoyance productions including Co-ed Prison Sluts, The Real Live Brady Bunch and Manson: The Musical.  Annoyance directing credits include Pigs is Pigs: A White Trash Musical and Marry Me You Idiot.  He also served for more than nine years as The Annoyance’s managing director and since 1993, has been a member of its faculty. 

Mark has appeared at IO Theater with the renowned improv group Georgia Pacific and is a performer and facilitator for The Second City where he is also a former director of the National Touring Company and directed the Canadian premiere of Co-ed Prison Sluts for Second City Toronto.  Sutton is also an influential voice in the improv community across the United States and Canada.  Since 2005, he has served as the Artistic Director of The Chicago Improv Festival, and throughout the past decade, he has been a featured instructor in dozens of national improv and comedy festivals. His award-winning comedy BASSPROV (co-created with Joe Bill) has been seen in 30 cities in North America.