After months of silence imposed by the pandemic, the improvisation leagues are starting to play again this fall. If they can count on the return of the public, many have suffered the repercussions of the crisis that hit the restaurant industry and have lost their stage.
“It was complicated to find a new place in the midst of the pandemic,” immediately launches Geneviève Morin, member of La Sprite. Since 2018, the improvisation league has played every Wednesday in the Montreal restaurant Le Coton, on the Plaza Saint-Hubert. However, the health crisis got the better of the establishment, which closed its doors permanently in July 2020.
The members of the league had to seek a plan B across the metropolis, hoping to find a room in the Rosemont district, where they have been installed for more than fifteen years.
“The problem was, you couldn’t start the search too early and risk finding a place that would close before the resumption. So we started by playing the contacts, finding out about the bars that had space. Another problem, many rooms ask for fees, and we, as NPOs, we did not have the money for that, ”specifies Geneviève Morin, not hiding that we feared for the survival of the league.
Luckily, the Broue Pub Brouhaha, at the corner of avenue De Lorimier and rue des Carrières, opened its doors to them with “enthusiasm” at the beginning of the fall, just in time to organize the recruitment and start the season. .
Les Cravates experienced the same “disaster scenario” in November 2020. The bar where they had taken up residence more than 20 years ago, the Ninkasi Simple Malt – also located on the Plaza Saint-Hubert -, had to resolve to put the key under the door, too weakened by the pandemic. “It was a shock. The league was on hiatus, but it’s something to suddenly lose your room, ”says Roberto Sierra, a die-hard member of the league.
Wanted: an adoption bar
Unlike La Sprite, Les Cravates chose to take their time to find a new adoption bar. They are also still actively seeking. Since mid-October, they play a number of games reduced to two per month and walk from room to room across Montreal. “We test, we note the pros and cons, we shop. We did not want to run everywhere and choose in a hurry, we really want to choose the room that suits us best and settle there for good, ”continues Roberto Sierra.
In his opinion, the league has the big end of the stick as it offers establishments the promise of lively and engaging Sundays for consumers. The competition is strong however, as they are not the only ones looking. The league is giving itself until the end of the year to find the right fit and thus start the winter season normally.
If she was able to find without problem the boards of Bar Le Cocktail, where she played before the pandemic, La Limonade has lost its audience. “Last week there must have been three or four people in the non-league audience. We ask ourselves a lot of questions, ”admits one of the members, Olivier Goulet-Lafond. But seeing the public rushing to the matches of other teams, he believes above all that this drop in attendance is due to their location, the neighborhood having lost its luster since the pandemic. “Sainte-Catherine Street is dead. There are plenty of closed places, even the McDonald’s on the corner, to say the least. “
I think the audience got bored of the improv. People need to laugh again.
The majority of leagues polled by The duty indicated that they were pleasantly surprised by the “massive return” of the public. “We are full every week, we even have to refuse people at the door, it’s a great problem,” said François Larouche, of La Sprite. Same story at Les Cravates.
In the national capital, the Quebec Improvisation League has also been full since its resumption in September at the Palais Montcalm. Wanting to start off smoothly to gauge the public’s response, the league is only playing every other week this season. Seeing the traffic during the games, she plans to return to a weekly performance.
Reservations are flowing
The enthusiasm is also evident on the side of the Montreal Improvisation League (LIM), which has not yet even returned to the stage of the Lion d’Or. “We just announced a return date, January 16, but the world is already calling to book. It promises to get off to a good start, ”explains enthusiastically one of the players, Mathieu Bouillon.
The National Improvisation League (LNI) is also seeing some public impatience, considering the speed at which tickets are flowing for its first matches in February. Sales are even “better than before the pandemic”, according to its artistic director, François-Étienne Paré. “I think the audience got bored of the improv,” he says. People need to laugh again. “