avenueJANUARY.18
Local improv theatre company Loose
Moose marked its 40th anniversary
milestone at the start of this season.
Just as it did in the early years, the
company continues to offer improv
training and present shows (co-
founder Keith Johnstone is credited
with creating the now-ubiquitous
Theatresports format), these days out
of a space within the Crossroads Mar-
ket building southeast of Stampede
Park. While the venues have changed
over the past decades, much about
the company has remained constant,
including founding member Dennis
Cahill, currently in the role of artistic
director. Here, one of the company’s
best-known alumni ruminates on the
role Loose Moose played in launching
his own comedy career and how the
company’s intrinsic generosity is
a big part of why it has lasted so long.
T
hat logo hasn’t really changed all that much in
40 years, even if much else has. You know the
logo? That wry cartoon moose grinning out at
you, more drinking buddy than animal. Like a
funny couch-surfing fixture of Calgary, Loose
Moose has just kept hanging around, somehow, a true
institution, but one that doesn’t demand attention, like
the people who have made it and kept it great.BY Bruce McCulloch
PHOTOGRAPH BY Michael PoolOf Moose
& Men
I first stumbled into one of Loose Moose’s Theatresports
shows almost 35 years ago. Even back then it seemed like
they’d been around forever, or maybe that’s what it felt like
to me. I was a student at the time at Mount Royal College
(not University yet) and I was both curious and cynical,
still in the grips of my punk stage, student by day, forklift
driver by night and this was my night off. I’d heard that
improvisers “just made things up” and that it was competi-
tive. Worth a shot. If I hadn’t gone, I still may be loading
trucks at Canada Dry. (Well, I would have hurt my back by
now, so I presume I’d have moved into sales).
Back then the venue was out near the airport beside
the Port O’ Call hotel in a converted cattle-auction facil-
ity. Not a lot of theatres can boast that. I paid my three
bucks or so and settled in, enthralled, even if I didn’t
want to show it, being a punk and all.
The improvisers bounded out on stage, rock stars in
unflattering pants. They were the first group of cool nerds
I’d ever seen: Dennis Cahill, Dave Duncan, Jim Curry,
Kathleen Foreman and the Totino brothers, Frank and
Tony, who seemed to float in slow motion. Three judges
eyed them like prey, ready to score their scenes or sound
a horn mid-scene if they found it boring. Wo w. The
sheer indignity of being told to stop what you’re doing
and leave the stage! Some rejections are private. This one
certainly was not. This was the knife’s edge that I found
immediately exhilarating and which has been the source
of Loose Moose’s decades-long staying power.
The performers took suggestions from the audience
and made stuff up on the spot. (How could they do that!?)
Given a line of dialogue, a scene emerged. Even when it
wasn’t perfect, it was alive and real. Watching, I felt in some
way I had found my tribe. My religion. As if I’d stumbled
into a church and finally it all made sense.
After the show, I waited. Like much of the audience,
I was secretly wondering if I could do this. When Dennis
came out, I sidled up to him, stared down at my purple
shoes and asked, “um, how do you get to do this?” He
explained that they let anyone do it. He explained that“EVEN WHEN
IT WASN’T
PERFECT, IT
WAS ALIVE
AND REAL.
WATCHING,
I FELT IN SOME
WAY I HAD
FOUND MY
TRIBE. MY
RELIGION.”
46