Beat the Dead Horse | Improv Sketch
Tampa, FL
Cast
Jason Kraynek
Joe Davison
Marty Hoffman
Darryl Knapp
Darren Vierday
Robert Johnson
Cast
Shawn Paonessa
Chris Gorges
Kathryn Sheridan
Dan Szematowicz
Brie Voisine
Janet Bentley
Beat the Dead Horse (1997-98) was a group conceived on a whim because a local comedy club put out a newspaper ad saying “They were looking to form an Improv group like the TV show ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’ (new to America at the time)”.
A few people went down to the club only to find that there wasn’t a group at all but they WANTED a group to perform there, so basically anyone who showed up I think was in the group. I couldn’t make the first get-together as I was working a full-time job and involved all my free time with theater, though was tempted when Robert Johnson (a guy I knew from a company I worked with called Wizard Studios) told me about it.
Though not involved in the first 2 shows, which consisted of performing for an hour before South Park season 1 aired, I joined the group shortly afterward and found a love for improv comedy and a discovery of how easy it was for me to perform it.
We attempted to add some sketch comedy bits in between playing improv games we either got from a book or saw on TV. Understand that this was a group of 6-8 members some of which knew nothing of improv, sketch, or anything- so it was rough at first.
After performing before South Park every week and becoming known as ‘Tampa’s First Official Improv Comedy Group’, we moved on to playing bars, clubs, and a few venues. Most notably the dive bar known as ‘The Brass Mug’, whose patrons did NOT want to see improv comedy while drinking and playing pool.
The group broke up with a long drawn-out drama of a conversation, which ended up with Joe Davidson and myself walking out and forming the Charming Hooligans with 75% of BTDH.
