I was having a conversation with someone yesterday and this story somehow just came up. And it was then that I realized how fond an improv memory it it to me, so I thought I’d share it with everyone.

In November of 2006, Kary, Will Cooper, and I performed at the New Orleans Improv Festival (the same festival that bequeathed the name Good Commitment to us) as the BBQ Peas. We were originally going to be a six man ensemble with Gabe, Kristin, and Jonette (how awesome would that have been?!) but they couldn’t make it. So Kary, Will, and I developed a lineup that included some new versions of several games we love.

Interrogation is an improv game played by three people. One is the “criminal.” He must either leave the room or seal his ears while the audience determines who he is (usually a celebrity or a literary character) and what crime he has committed. The other two players are the cops, and they sit him down in front of everyone, and through their interrogations, he must figure out the info and confess to the crime.

Sounds challenging enough, huh? Well, apparently not for us. No, we decided to make it as hard as we could on ourselves. So we developed a version with further limitations. What you’re about to read might scare you. Brace yourself. For this version, Kary is the criminal, Will is Cop 1, and I’m Cop 2.

Will was mute. He put duct tape over his mouth. So he heard the important information for Kary to guess, but he couldn’t say anything. I was deaf. I had my ipod on the whole time, and I never even got to hear what Kary’s crime was.

…so obviously Will would have to act out what it was, so Kary could guess from that, huh? Nope. Kary was blind. We put a blindfold on him, so that there was no way he could see what Will- who was the only one who knew the information- was doing.

It was one of the few games we performed that the New Orleans audience loved. Probably because it was almost like watching a Penn and Teller trick. The premise is impossible, but somehow, it all works out. And it did. I interrogated Kary based on what I was guessing from Will’s charades, while Will indicated whether Kary was on the right track, or even whether I was making the right guesses in the first place.

Ahh…good times. Now, why the New Orleans audience only loved a “few” of our games, well, that’s a different story for another day.