The Art of 'Yes And': Copper Planet Improv is Bringing a New Art to Globe-Miami, and It’s Hilarious

Imagine the world’s worst deli worker. Maybe they dip a finger deep into a sandwich spread to give it a taste, or run a hand clear from their chin up to their nose before chopping the vegetables… barehanded.

An actor acts out these offenses on stage at Globe’s Center for the Arts on a Saturday night in April. This is part of an improv game called, “World’s Worst.” The performance host asks the audience to shout out jobs at random, and actors take turns portraying the absolute worst person for each role. 

Laughter fills the room. A woman wipes away tears between snorts. Welcome to the wonderfully unpredictable world of improv.

“World’s Worst” was just one of many improv games played during Copper Planet Improv’s first comedy night, led by local improv instructor and actor Javier Gilmore. He’s building a new community around this art of spontaneity in Globe-Miami.

Copper Planet Improv is Gilmore’s new nonprofit dedicated to fostering short-form improv, a rapid-fire format of unscripted games and skits. The April performance featured Phoenix-based actors, many of whom run their own improv theaters or businesses. They're friends and supporters of Gilmore, rallying to bring Arizona’s improv scene into Globe-Miami.

Javier Gilmore at the Center for the Arts, where Copper Planet Improv’s first performance took place in April. Photo by Jenn Walker[/caption]

Improv is, at its core, unscripted—unplanned and unrehearsed. Scenes are created in the moment, often with audience input. Gilmore describes it as a blend of pretending and playing, yet, when done well, it can feel like a polished performance.

“When done well by people who know how to do it well, it can really come across as a rehearsed and practiced piece,” he explains. “And you would wear it, and that's the highest compliment, I think, if you achieve it.”

The roots of improv trace back to Ancient Rome and 16th-century Italy, and later in vaudeville performances. Its evolution continued into the early 20th century with children’s theater games and exercises, and the unscripted performances of Chicago’s Compass Players in the 1950s. Shows like Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Saturday Night Live helped catapult the art form into mainstream comedy.

Other influential improv theaters and training centers have since emerged in various metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and New York. 

While improv doesn’t have to be comical, it often is. 

“It ends up being that way mainly for entertainment purposes,” says Gilmore. “And that's the way most people come into it, is through comedy.”

Gilmore’s path to improv began in 2008. Recently retired from a 20-year career as a detention officer in Phoenix, he stumbled across an article in the local paper about improv and decided to give it a shot.

“It really did feel more like a moment, like something offered,” he recalls. “I just started, I just jumped off that cliff.”

“I do really remember taking my first step on the stage and having a distinct feeling of, I'm home,” he adds. “It really just took over my life, and I really got super hard into it.”

The Torch Theatre, what was the Valley’s iconic hub for improv comedy and theater, became his playground. He trained extensively in Phoenix, and ventured to LA and Chicago, including the famed Chicago IO, an improv theater and training center in central Chicago whose alumni include Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert.

Gilmore at a workshop with well-known improv teacher Jimmy Carrane during a six-week improv intensive at Chicago IO, an improv theater and training center in central Chicago. Chicago IO notable alumni include Amy Poehler and Stephen Colbert. Photo provided by Javier Gilmore

He soaked up classes and workshops, began performing and competing with improv teams, and eventually began teaching.

“I know from experience people struggle with the fear of being up in front of others and performing in front of others,” he explains. “They're just coming into it. I feel for them, and I always want to help people like that because I want them to feel the joy of it.” 

In 2023, Gilmore and his wife and family moved to Globe-Miami to be closer to her hometown. With the move came a mission: to plant the seeds of an improv community here.

Short-form improv, like what played out at the Center for the Arts in April—structured, fast-paced games that last just minutes—is Gilmore’s starting point. Some games, like “Pan Left,” rotate actors through unrelated scenarios like a TV remote flipping channels. Others are prop-based; a traffic cone becomes a megaphone in one skit, and a nose in another. 

There are the obvious reasons for improv’s recent surge in popularity, which has moved beyond niche underground comedy venues to the mainstream. It’s wildly entertaining; meanwhile, actors relish in the performance. 

Yet, improv serves other purposes, too. Many credit it with building confidence and positive communication skills. Gilmore agrees.

“One of the bumper sticker slogans of improv is, ‘yes and,’” he explains. “What it means is you should agree with the premise or the facts that your partner is putting forward as being real, and now, what would you suggest you add on?”

“Together, you kind of construct this reality around each other that you then play in,” he continues. “You as an actor have to kind of be agreeable to what your partner is trying to construct.”

This approach, he says, fosters collaboration and adaptability, openness to the reality of not always being in control—skills that often carry off the stage into real life.

“You become more agreeable with your partner, with your kids, with your neighbors,” he says. “There's a saying that improv isn’t therapy, but it can be therapy, you know.”

The magic of “yes and” has become so effective in having this sort of impact that many improv theaters offer corporate workshops and team building classes for businesses.

Gilmore performs in comedy series Night of the Chicken: The Venda Gram of Doom at Space 55 in downtown Phoenix in February 2019. Photo credit Rodrigo Izquierdo

Jacque Arend—improv actor, executive director of the Sonoran All-Valley Improv Festival, and long-time leader in Arizona’s improv scene—teaches such classes. She was among those who performed in April and supported Gilmore’s efforts.

As an improv instructor who organizes improv outreach programs for businesses and team building, she has seen the ripple effect improv can have in a community.

“People of all walks of life have the ability to step into it and enjoy the creativity that comes from it, along with the collaboration that comes along with it, in terms of our connectivity, our human connection,” she says. 

As Globe-Miami whets its appetite for improv theater and builds its own local talent, Gilmore will continue to cycle improv actors from the Valley into upcoming performances. 

Meanwhile, he plans to begin offering improv classes via Copper Planet Improv in the fall. Between putting on performances and offering classes, he hopes to create what he envisions as a community of short-form improv lovers, and eventually form the community’s own sponsored house teams that perform regularly and compete regionally. 

Whether you’re on stage or in the audience, he hopes the community will say “yes, and.”

“It's a really lovely and magical thing to add to your life,” Arend says of improv.

“Whether people are willing to drop in or want to keep doing it or just want to come out and support it and support the people in their town that are doing it, either way, there’s a really beautiful spirit of camaraderie around it because of its spontaneous nature,” she adds. “So, I really hope that the people of Globe, you know, give it a try. Give it a try and check it out, at least once.”

The next Copper Planet Improv performance will take place Saturday, August 9 at 7 p.m. at the Center for the Arts. Tickets are available at copperplanetimprov.com.