by RAEONNA JORDAN
If you’re a classic Hollywood fan, you might remember Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland’s iconic line: “I know! Let’s put on a show in the old barn!”
A few years back, a group of Door County friends did exactly that. Their new improv group, The Knobs, strode onstage at the barn – the Peach Barn Farmhouse and Brewery, to be precise – and made their debut to a standing-room-only crowd in October 2022.
The original group included six people: Abby Doobie, Owen Alabado, brothers Matt and Josh Stone, and cousins Hope and Brandon Bogenschutz. When Josh moved away for a stretch last winter, two new members – Anna Snell and Buck McKay – signed on. Snell, Doobie and the Bogenschutzes are all Door County natives and Gibraltar High School grads.
Collectively, the group claims varied levels of professional experience. Alabado is the veteran. He spent 17 years in Los Angeles, where, in addition to doing improv and stand-up comedy, he worked as an acting coach and made several films.
“I spent a dozen years doing stand-up, but I’ve always loved improv,” he said. “It’s such a playful, meaningful way to be creative.”
Alabama native McKay began with an introductory improv class while he was in Japan. “I’m a major comedy nerd,” he said. “Beginning with that class, I immediately fell in love with everything improv.” He has since studied and performed in major cities as his work took him around the country.
Brandon Bogenschutz earned a theater degree from University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and has numerous stage credits along with a role in Alabado’s film “Two Truths and a Lie,” which was screened at the 2024 Door County Short Film Fest.
Hope Bogenschutz wrote and performed standup in Milwaukee for several years.
Newcomer Snell’s history was limited to high school musicals and plays. Stone and Doobie nurtured a strong interest in improv, but never pursued it. But Doobie’s interest in improv was piqued when she followed a friend’s recommendation and took several improv classes in Chicago. That inspired her to approach Alabado about starting a local improv group, and soon The Knobs took shape.
Stage and screen lore is littered with the names of major show biz folks who admit to extreme stage fright, from Henry Fonda and Lauren Bacall to Adele and Barbara Streisand. You might think that stepping onto the improv stage with no script and no idea of where the next hour will take you would bring on the same, but that’s not the case for The Knobs. Even the youngest and least experienced member, Snell, said she hasn’t found it intimidating.
“You just rip the band-aid off and start,” she said. “If it’s bad, well, you just do better next time.” Indeed, for all these players, the notion of flying without a net is no big deal.
“We are each other’s net,” Hope Bogenschutz said.
“If you trip and fall in stand-up, it’s so difficult to get back up,” Alabado said. “But if you trip and fall in improv – and it doesn’t happen that often there’s a team behind you and an audience behind you. You bring them in on the laugh.”
Not all improv groups have that sense of teamwork. Alabado can attest to that thanks to his years on the West Coast.
“In LA, everyone is trying to stand out, be discovered,” Alabado said. “I’m ecstatic that improv has been a part of my life here for the past two years, especially because you’re doing it with your friends. We are there to boost one another up, make each other better. We’re friends, not competitors.”
Stone concurred. “I’ve worked in improv programs with people with immense talent who have gone on to success in comedy, but it was all about them getting the laugh,” he said. “For us, it’s just about making the scene work and getting a laugh.”
When performing improv, McKay said, it’s imperative that you have no shame.
“The absolute worst improvisers are cool people,” McKay said.
According to Stone, the best part of improv is “starting off with no map.”
“It’s like a muscle that you develop – it just has to go into action,” Brandon Bogenschutz said. “It’s like building a plane while you’re flying it.”
The Knobs’ improv is “short form” – two- to 10-minute scenes, all off-the-cuff and based on different categories within set games. Each scene begins with a brief introduction and a request for audience suggestions – for a location, an item, a situation.
And there’s an art to choosing which call-out to accept.“You always, always want to take a second before settling on a suggestion,” Stone said. “Some people want to be part of the comedy, too; they try to say something they think is funny. But comedy doesn’t come from something with comedy built in.”
What the group does not do is get political. “People come to our shows to escape reality,” Stone said. “There’s no agenda to a Knobs show; we’re just here to make people laugh.”
“It’s about bringing a community together, finding common ground,” Alabado said. “And what’s more common than laughter?”
