By Taylor Shaw
The Chicago native, Stephen Kipp arrived at Fordham with his sights set on the on-campus comedy groups. In high school, he took a few comedy classes and participated in a teen ensemble with The Second City, a comedy organization in Chicago, where he first gained experience with sketch and improv comedy.
“I knew the name of the improv team before I got here, and I found out they had a stand-up team, too, so the first thing I did was get involved with FET,” Kipp admitted. “I looked it up—well, my mom did the actual looking up—because I did improv in high school, and I definitely knew I wanted to do that.” He auditioned for both groups during freshman year, was selected for the teams and has been involved with the Fordham Experimental Theatre (FET) since then.
Nearly four years later, Kipp is the current leader of Stranded in Pittsburgh Improv Comedy group, and a former leader of Fordham Stand-Up. Each group performs both on-campus in the Blackbox and off-campus in various arenas. This year, the improv group performed at the college improv tournament on Jan. 20 at the Magnet Theater in Manhattan, as well as in various “jams” around the city. Fordham Stand-up performed at Gotham Comedy Club and Eastville Comedy Club.
He went on to explain that, while the two comedy groups are similar in their breadth, they are drastically different in the ways the teams function and perform. Though they workshop and provide feedback to one another, the members of stand-up perform individually at the end of the day.
“It’s just you up there, it has to be very genuine—you can’t really do otherwise and do well,” he reflected, while also appreciating the way the members of the group influence one another’s style and incorporate aspects into their own acts.
Improv, on the other hand, forces every performer on a stage to be tuned into the others; they have to listen well to one another, giving each other content and material that they can build upon to create something cohesive, all without preparation.
“There’s something so freeing about that: going up with no ideas and together somehow forming something out of nothing and then, in the end it’s all washed away,” Kipp said. “You build something really cool, but once it’s over it’s over. You will never and can never do it again, and you hardly even remember what you did. There’s something really beautiful about that.”
Kipp attributes a lot of credit to FET for his growth as a performer and comedian, and expressed that every performer he has interacted with has influenced him and can feel more in touch with how far boundaries can be pushed on stage. He described the community as an “awesome incubator full of creativity” and his experience as “getting to explore what comedy can be.” Through these experiences, comedy has become inseparable from who he is.
“I’ve never performed without being scared,” he confessed. “I was so bad at first. I was so bad for so long and I didn’t get laughs and that sucked but it’s part of the process. But now I just do it because that’s how my brain works now, I need that outlet to keep functioning.”
Outside of Fordham, Kipp and his friends from high school started a production company called Flightless Bird Creative. Currently, Flightless Bird Creative is shooting videos found on companies in the Chicago area’s homepage. However, the collective is focusing on moving to more recognizable name brands. Additionally, the group is focusing on original content, shooting its own comedy sketches and shorts. In the long-term, the goal is to move into production for film and TV.
This semester, Kipp is directing a show he wrote, “ImagiNation,” for FET’s slot one production. The show is about a fifth grade boy who gets bored in class and daydreams. In his daydreaming, the audience watches him travel to ImagiNation, a “big public space,” where anyone who is simultaneously daydreaming has a body and can “hang out.” The play combines Kipp’s passions with a heavy emphasis on humor and improvisation.
“There is of course a whole plot and a script, but in the script there are points where it will say, ‘here’s the situation, talk to the audience for a little bit, or play this game, or riff on this for a little while, then get back to the script,’ so pretty much every scene has some improv,” he said. “I think that it’ll be really cool to see because it allows the performers to really make the show their own and to have free reign with their characters and what can happen.”
“ImagiNation” will perform in the Blackbox in Collins, Feb. 15-17 at 8:30 p.m. and Feb. 18 at 2:00 p.m.
