Improvisers dish on how they survive what is traditionally considered the most punishing part of an improvathon.
Having done over 25 improvathons, Mark Meer misses the visions and the madness that occur on his second night when the body and mind truly frays under the weight of sleep deprivation.
He recalls when co-actor Paul Foxcroft, to create the effect of arm muscles, had put apples up his sleeves but then grew so tired he forgot he had put them there and became convinced that he had cancer of the arms.
On Saturday around 2am, they shared a scene where Foxcroft confessed onstage that he was afraid to die.
“I actually said to him in the scene, hey, you’re okay. You just have apples up your sleeve. He took them out. I remember how he was so visibly relieved,” says Meer.
Come see the madness
If you drop in very late night at the London 50-Hour Improvathon in 2024 from 7pm on 8th March to 9pm on 10th March at Wilton’s Music Hall, be ready to watch scenes of madness as actors without sleep must carry on.
Over the course of the weekend, more than 50 of the world’s top comedy improvisers will perform a show lasting an entire weekend. This year, it’s wedding season at Everafter Manor – the UK’s hottest spot to tie the knot. Loved-up couples arrive with friends and family, but will they falter before the altar? The weekend will be split into 25 episodes, each 2 hours long, and audiences can drop in at any point to catch a stand-alone episode, or binge-watch everything back-to-back.
Twenty four hours of missed sleep is the same as having a blood alcohol concentration of 0.10 percent, higher than the legal driving limit in the U.S., says the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms from one day of missed sleep might include drowsiness, anger, brain fog and food cravings, says the CDC’s website.
But after two days without shut-eye, watch out for impaired memory, slow reaction time, inflammation and hallucinations, says the website.
Getting through the early hours of Saturday morning, actors who have gone the distance of the 50-hour improvathon often refer to Saturday night as “the gates of hell” when they must navigate a shifting barrier between dream, sleep and what’s happening on-stage.
“It’s like a vision quest,” says Meer. The struggle is worth it, he argues.
“I can’t think of a single improv soap where I haven’t learned something that I didn’t know, either through observation or directly being in a scene. I can’t articulate how that works, but I just come away better every time,” says Meer.
Each actor manages it differently.
This again
For Jacob Banigan the gates of hell begin when he can’t remember why he is doing an improvathon in the first place, he says.
“I think, this is ridiculous. Why are we pushing our bodies?” says Banigan.
Checking in with fellow actors soothes his paranoia. Even just making sure to make eye contact on stage helps, he says.
Seamus Allen says routine helps him through the toughest bits. Before each episode he stands in the wings, and “hi-fives” each actor as they enter the stage.
When the lack of sleep becomes overwhelming, he will search for a quiet space to recharge with some alone-time. Sometimes this means a wash, he brushes his teeth and does a bit of yoga.
“I come back to watch the action for a bit and realise, that everyone is in the same boat,” says Allen.
Having the courage to be vulnerable onstage and off is valuable to Allen, who notes we all struggle to do this in life. He finds strength in allowing himself to fully experience this.
Routine and simple rewards help co-director and actor Ali James. She counts on the Seamus high-five to keep her going. Another reward is her morning coffee.
“Plus, I love that sunrise selfie. We go out for a group photo,” says James.
Pushing through
For producer and co-director Adam Meggido, it’s when actors earn those “tiny scratches of laughs” from the stalwart audience members remaining to watch at 3am on Saturday.
These laughs, which would have elicited a roar from the audience in a 7pm Friday or Saturday show are doubly valuable and Meggido describes them as a “lifeline.”
The cast, crew and audience learn very personal things in the late hours and throughout the improvathon, he says.
“Trusting ourselves and each other is the big one. The improvathons are about a community. We can only keep the story alive, if we do it together – no matter what we are going through on our own,” he says.