Strategies

Monopolizing the Metro

Some artists go underground to come out on top

by Eliza Bent

Challenge
It's hard to make art when the economy is hurting and you don't have a proper theatre venue.

Plan
Use public spaces to make art.

Key Players
Theatre artists, captive, unsuspecting audiences and kind cops.

What Worked
Elements of surprise.

What Didn't
Getting in trouble with the authorities, closed subway lines.

What's Next
Visit www.improveverywhere.com for upcoming missions.

The Joshua Bell experiment in the Washington, D.C., metro—where world-famous violinist Bell played some of Bach's most dazzling music, and for 45 minutes went virtually unnoticed by commuters—may have proved that most people do not recognize beauty when it stares them in the face. Or it may have proved that folks just aren't that into live performance while riding mass transit. We've all experienced annoying buskers, and sometimes we tune out the good ones—even virtuosos like Bell. But does this have to happen? And could it be any different with theatre? Groups like the New York City-based Improv Everywhere prove that even in the dreary subway underworld, art can joyfully and subversively thrive.

Improv Everywhere began in 2001 when Charlie Todd, fresh from his dramatic studies at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, grew frustrated waiting for his big break. "I started staging performances in public places," Todd says. Some of these early antics included Todd pretending to be musician Ben Folds at a New York City bar. His friends clamored for autographs, which made other bar patrons believe Todd was in fact Folds. This created a scene. (Improv Everywhere's motto is, in fact, "We Cause Scenes.") A later experiment involved staging a rooftop concert and pretending to be the band U2. (Cops came and broke up the group.)

But a number of Improv Everywhere's feats (the pranksters call themselves "agents," and their stunts are fittingly known as "missions") have taken place on New York City's metro. "In 2002 we staged a fake surprise party on the 6 train. That was a favorite," Todd writes from Barcelona where he is a guest at a conference called "The Influencers," devoted to exploring unconventional weapons of mass communication. "We got an entire car of strangers to put on party hats and scream 'surprise' when our friend—who was in on the joke—entered at a certain stop. Then we all ate cupcakes." For another underground mission organized last year, Todd recruited 15 pairs of identical twins to sit directly across from each other on a subway car. "We got lots of amazing double takes from people," Todd says. The subway list goes on: a pair of agents pretending to be long-lost brothers, two agents trading articles of clothing, a group of agents holding up signs instructing commuters to high-five an improviser as they passed him on a rush-hour escalator.

But it is "Frozen Grand Central" that catapulted the group to wider fame. If you YouTube those words, you'll see how 207 Improv Everywhere agents froze in place for five minutes in Grand Central Station, garnering gawks from onlookers. You'll also note that more than 15 million people have viewed the clip. The stunt has been copied by groups around the world.

Is this theatre? Is it even art? Todd thinks so. "The most exciting thing to me is to interact with people who don't realize they are part of a performance. I also like the idea of demonstrating that theatre/comedy/art can happen anywhere—not just within a frame." The group disassociates itself from flash mobs, large groups of people suddenly assembling in a public space, citing instead its roots in theatre. (Many of its agents are culled from the Upright Citizens Brigade, a breeding ground of improv talent, though anyone can take part in Improv Everywhere.)

In many of the clips, which are posted on its website, you can hear onlookers muttering that these happenings must be political statements, but Todd insists his crew is not political in the usual sense. "Our goal is to create unexplainable, magical scenes," says Todd. "It loses its magic if it can be dismissed as a political protest." Then again, Todd admits that some of the underlying concepts of Improv Everywhere are political, such as the idea that people should be able to use public spaces for creative expression.

One of the group's trademark missions is the annual No Pants Subway Ride, during which agents simply "forget to wear pants" and ride the rails. This past January, one unsuspecting spectator, Greg Portz, was waiting at the Spring Street stop. "It was one of the funniest things I have ever seen," Portz recalls. "It wasn't just that people were in their underwear—it was the reactions of everyone else, especially of people who seemed to disapprove." In fact, the authorities disapproved so much in 2006 that eight No Pants participants were handcuffed and brought into custody (the charges were later dropped). Despite such risks, the No Pants event has become so popular that groups in 22 cities around the world enacted their own No Pants Day this year.

But back to the hundreds of commuters who breezed past Bell: Are we so conditioned to avoid aesthetic stimulation in the subway? Doesn't the drabness of the setting inhibit potential art? Says Todd, "The subway is probably my favorite location for us. It provides a wonderful captive audience. Yes, it's drab. But that's the point. We like to bring color to black-and-white places."