Four Day Weekend Improvisational Comedy

Glamorous Sundance Square offers shops, restaurants, and if you like, four live improvisational comedy shows every weekend. 

The actors of Four Day Weekend are probably familiar faces to you, whether you know it or not. They appear in national and local commercials, make films, do standup, teach improv classes, and conduct corporate workshops. They are David Ahearn, David Wilk, Oliver Tull, Frank Ford, and Joshua Roberts. Ray Sharp is the musical director -- each show includes a live, spontaneous score.

The early show at 7:30 p.m. is a very different experience from the 10 p.m. showing, mostly because the audience is a little more lubricated the later it gets. At both shows, the actors perform a mix of improv driven entirely by audience suggestions and sketches helped along with audience input. 
 

In one bit, an actor reads from a copy of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and asks the audience to call out page numbers. He reads the headlines from the corresponding page, and then the rest of the troupe develops a scene based on those stories.
 

In another, an audience member is spotlighted and asked his or her name, favorite store, and occupation. These tidbits are then incorporated into a parody of the TV show "Cops," with a break-in at the audience member's favorite store. 
 

But the theater and its employees don't just work on weekend nights. The Four Day Weekend Training center offers four levels of classes in improv performance, sketch writing, and sketch performance. 

- by Jessica Burgess, Fort Worth Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)

Jessica Burgess

Jessica Burgess spent most of the '00s working for The Dallas Morning News and San Antonio Express News as an editor and writer, and now she teaches high school journalism. She has resided in the Dallas area for 29 out of her 33 years. She is married with a toddler son.