{"id":2177,"date":"2012-02-07T15:12:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T23:12:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=2177"},"modified":"2012-02-08T09:17:11","modified_gmt":"2012-02-08T17:17:11","slug":"proops-tackles-all-aspects-of-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/02\/07\/proops-tackles-all-aspects-of-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Proops tackles all aspects of comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite Greg Proops\u2019 reputation for being sharp and sarcastic, he sounds sincere, reflective and maybe a little tired on the phone from San Francisco. He\u2019s performing at the city\u2019s Sketchfest, before heading to Victoria for a live version of the hit improv television show Whose Line Is It Anyway?<\/em>, but he doesn\u2019t have the luxury of watching any of the other Sketchfest shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so bloody busy trying to get my shit together,\u201d admits Proops. Between interviewing Eddie Izzard, performing standup, and recording an episode of his podcast (jokingly titled \u201cThe Smartest Man in the World\u201d), Proops clearly has his hands full.<\/p>\n

Most know him from Whose Line Is It Anyway?<\/em>, but Proops has explored every corner of the comedy world. And although he\u2019s had his hands in many funny pies, he always ends up coming back to improv. But Proops\u2019 cross-disciplinary approach is less common than you might expect.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Greg Proops is coming to town (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMost standups don\u2019t care for improv at all, and most improvisers think that standups are self-centred assholes, and I think they\u2019re both true,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve been fortunate enough to do both, and I find that the improvisors that I work with are enormously creative and do lots of other things as well. If we never get around to sitting around and formally writing a sketch, it\u2019s because we have so much fun making it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proops\u2019 standup set at Sketchfest is also improvised. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of a freefall as well; they kind of hand you a list of topics and you have to make them up as you go along,\u201d he says. \u201cI prefer the freefall to the prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proops says that he finds it hard to imagine what he\u2019d be doing in a world without comedy, but it\u2019d probably involve him getting up to no good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d probably be a petty criminal or drug addict or something. Well, I\u2019m both now, but I\u2019ve combined them with my job,\u201d he jokes.<\/p>\n

In an alternate universe, Proops also entertains the idea that he might be writing history books somewhere. The dramatic arts, even in an improvised setting, don\u2019t even come into the equation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other types of improv where the goal isn\u2019t to be necessarily funny,\u201d says Proops, \u201cbut I find that being funny is a good launching-off point for focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whose Live Anyway?<\/strong>
\nFriday, February 17, 7pm and 9:30pm
\nMcPherson Playhouse, $49.50
\nrmts.bc.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite Greg Proops\u2019 reputation for being sharp and sarcastic, he sounds sincere, reflective and maybe a little tired on the phone from San Francisco. He\u2019s performing at the city\u2019s Sketchfest, before heading to Victoria for a live version of the hit improv television show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, but he doesn\u2019t have the luxury […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-february-8-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2177"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2283,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2177\/revisions\/2283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}