By Alicia Stemper/Vitamin O for the Orange County Arts Commission
Kit is the ninth generation of men named Christopher (no middle name) FitzSimons although “I don’t have a number. My father was the 4th – they renumbered halfway through.” This ability to change direction and keep moving forward is a metaphor for Kit’s work in improvisational comedy. Kit started improv in high school the year after his first audition “did not go well.” He learned the importance of understanding his fellow players; he also learned to give up worrying about doing it wrong. He thinks back to skits from Boy Scout camping trips. “No one thought of it as improv.” However, by the time people are adults, he says such free-flowing play has “…been trained out of us.”
Kit recently started hosting Improv at 9:30 every Saturday night at the Varsity Theatre on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill after receiving a Facebook message “out of the blue” from Varsity owner Paul Shareshian. Having a regular venue has provided “a place we can do what we love that we are already doing” for the Triangle’s improv community. Admission is only $5 which makes improv an affordable entertainment option. Weekly audiences at the Varsity are growing steadily, but numbers are not the only measure Kit finds interesting. He will feel successful “… if the community at large would come to the improviser community when they need help.” He recently served as the emcee at Festifall. “No one really minded when the schedule was off” because his improv experience meant “I could keep things flowing.”
Improv has brought Kit “unbridled joy” and he stresses “the idea is kids at play.” At its core, improv is “a group of friends who connect, who trust each other, and who recognize each other’s superpowers.” Speaking of super powers, Kit feels he sees everything as a flavor of improv, but if he could choose, his super power would be shape shifting. Interestingly, such a superpower would be the physical manifestation of what one does mentally in improvisational comedy. Kit consistently finds the most successful improvisers keep it simple and aren’t “worried about doing it wrong.” When new to improv, people learn to ask “What does it look like, what does it remind me of, and what is the opposite?” Kit notes, “That moment of indecision turning into decision is so cool.”