3 for All

At first glance, what sets the guys in 3 for All apart from normal improv actors is a sense of style: They wear suspenders and broad ties, like noir film stars, and the soundtrack to their show is mostly cool jazz. "Improvisers," as actor Tim Orr says in the press materials, "are the jazz musicians of the acting world," so the choice of a jazz-era image is perhaps not quite accidental. But Orr, Stephen Kearin, and Rafe Chase are also as tight as a good jazz trio. Taking words or phrases from the audience -- on my night, for example, "bread," "kick it," and "washing dishes" -- they develop smooth, hilarious skits. In "Washing Dishes," Chase played a senile old man trying to do dishes unattended. Without saying a word, he snapped on rubber gloves and sponged glasses clean while Kearin provided sound effects through a microphone. It was a brilliant example of two-handed improv, with both actors responding to what the other was doing: Plates broke, plumbing exploded, and Grandpa's rubber gloves went shooting around the kitchen. Other skits were just as funny, although the long-form piece in the second half -- an improvised "movie" about a failed marriage and a bullfighter -- bogged and stalled the way you'd expect an improvised half-hour play to. The material changes every night; there are no guarantees. But along with a sense of style, these three have a face-saving sense of humor.