Dudley Riggs (January 18, 1932 – September 22, 2020) was an improvisational comedian who created the Instant Theater Company in New York, which later moved to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

to become the

Brave New Workshop The Brave New Workshop (BNW), based in Minneapolis, Minnesota was founded by Dudley Riggs in 1958 and is the longest running sketch and improvisational comedy theater in the US. BNW continues the tradition, of writing, producing, and performing ...

comedy troupe.

Family and early career

Riggs was born in

Little Rock, Arkansas (The Little Rock, The "Little Rock") , government_type = council-manager government, Council-manager , leader_title = List of mayors of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_ ...

and joined the

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

when he was five years old. His family performed in a variety of acts with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus where he learned comedy in the

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

style. He worked as a circus aerialist, comedy acrobat, and clown. Later, he formed a group that toured the country during winters when the circus was not operating.

Audience An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called "listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or ...

s at shows put on by the troupe were often quite hostile toward the performers. After years of trying to appease the crowds with traditional performance styles, Riggs began to request input from them. As an example, he might ask "Who do you hate in this town?" If the audience replied, "the mayor," the performers would quickly improvise a scene about the mayor. However, at the time, ''

improvisation Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

'' was a word primarily used to describe the actions of

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

musicians. Riggs was an admirer of jazz and avoided using the term himself, preferring the phrase "instant theater." Later, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' critic called Riggs' performances "word jazz," while members of the Second City troupe visiting in the 1960s and 1970s referred to the shows as "spot improv." One year, the

booking agent A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, broadcast journalists, film directors, musicians, models, professional athletes, screenwriters, writers, and other professionals in various entertainment or sp ...

for the troupe stated that he couldn't find anyplace willing to take the performers. In order to keep skills strong, Riggs rented a street-level space in New York City where group members could practice. People walking by could see what was going on by looking through the window, and passers-by soon began to offer money to watch rehearsals. Riggs began the Instant Theater Company in New York, which ran from 1954 to 1958. The famous critic

Walter Kerr Walter Francis Kerr (July 8, 1913 – October 9, 1996) was an American writer and Broadway theatre critic. He also was the writer, lyricist, and/or director of several Broadway plays and musicals as well as the author of several books, genera ...

was an early attendee, and was amazed by what he saw. He held off writing a review for three weeks because he couldn't believe that the performers were actually taking in the audience's ideas—Kerr was convinced that group members were calling upon

accomplice Under the English common law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even if they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller ...

s for input and were using pre-arranged material. After realizing the authenticity of performances, he wrote a glowing review. The Brave New Workshop Comedy Theatre in Downtown Minneapolis

Brave New Workshop

Riggs' improv group began touring before eventually settling in Minneapolis in 1958. Here, Riggs founded the Cafe Espresso on East

Hennepin Avenue Hennepin Avenue is a major street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It runs from Lakewood Cemetery (at West 36th Street), north through the Uptown District of Southwest Minneapolis, through the Virginia Triangle, the former "Bottleneck" a ...

, where he operated the first

espresso machine An espresso machine brews coffee by forcing pressurized water near boiling point through a "puck" of ground coffee and a filter in order to produce a thick, concentrated coffee called espresso. The first machine for making espresso was built in ...

in the state while also providing a home for Instant Theater Company. After the café moved to South Hennepin Avenue in Uptown in 1965, claims of "the first espresso machine west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

" were also made. By 1961 the name was finally changed to

. In 1971, Riggs opened the Experimental Theater Company (E.T.C.) in the Seven Corners area of Minneapolis, next to the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

. This theater provided a wider range of material including comedy, variety shows, and specialty acts. A number of famous performers started at the Brave New Workshop, including regional natives

Louie Anderson Louis Perry Anderson (March 24, 1953 – January 21, 2022) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, author and game show host. Anderson created the cartoon series '' Life with Louie'' and the television sitcom '' The Louie Show'', and wrote fou ...

and

Al Franken Alan Stuart Franken (born May 21, 1951) is an American comedian, politician, media personality, and author who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 2009 to 2018. He gained fame as a writer and performer on the television comed ...

, and writers such as

Pat Proft Pat Proft is an American comedy writer, actor, and director. Born in Minnesota in 1947, Proft began his career at Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis in the mid 1960s. He went on to perform as a one-man comedy act in the late 1960s. I ...

, television executive producer

Linda Wallem Linda Wallem (born May 29, 1961) is an American actress, writer, and producer. Early life Wallem was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and raised in Rockford, Illinois. She is the older sister of actor Stephen Wallem who co-stars on her show ''Nurse ...

, and scriptwriter and producer/director Peter Tolan. There was some sharing of experience and technique between BNW and Second City in Chicago.

Del Close Del Close (March 9, 1934 – March 4, 1999) was an American actor, writer, and teacher who coached many of the best-known comedians and comic actors of the late twentieth century. In addition to an acting career in television and film, he was ...

worked with Riggs for a time, and members of both troupes were regulars at each other's shows when traveling. After operating it for 39 years, Riggs sold the Brave New Workshop in 1997 to

Mark Bergen Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fi ...

, John Sweeney and

Jenni Lilledahl Jenni is a feminine given name, sometimes a modern diminutive or short form of Jennifer. The etymology is actually that of a diminutive of Jane, however. A separate name, with the same spelling, serves as a Finnish language diminutive of Johan ...

, though Bergen eventually moved on to other projects. Sweeney and Lilledahl still operate the theater and have made some changes. Their focus is more on long-form improvisation, while Riggs had always been more focused on shorter individual sketches. In 2017, the

University of Minnesota Press The University of Minnesota Press is a university press that is part of the University of Minnesota. It had annual revenues of just over $8 million in fiscal year 2018. Founded in 1925, the University of Minnesota Press is best known for its book ...

published Riggs's memoir ''Flying Funny: My Life Without a Net''. The memoir focuses on his early life in the circus and vaudeville, and the early development of improv, since the books ''Brave New Workshop'' by Ron Hubbard and ''Promiscuous Comedy'' by Irv Letofsky covered some later developments.

Death

Riggs died in Minneapolis on September 22, 2020, aged 88.

References

External links

*Historical Timeline/Highlights of 2605 Hennepin Avenue (http://www.bravenewworkshop.org/theatre/historicaltimeline.cfm). Brave New Workshop. Retrieved from
Brave New Workshop website
* Finding aid to th
Dudley Riggs papers
at th
Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Riggs, Dudley 1932 births 2020 deaths Writers from Little Rock, Arkansas Comedians from Arkansas 20th-century American comedians 21st-century American comedians American male comedians Improvisational theatre