Call it “Cheers” for the 21st Century.
“Players,” the new Spike TV sitcom co-starring and co-created by Secaucus native Ian Roberts, follows the lives of brothers Ken and Bruce Fitzgerald who own a sports bar in Phoenix, Ariz. This being a comedy, naturally Ken and Bruce are polar opposites. Roberts plays the uptight and buttoned-down Ken, who envies his younger, free-spirited brother Bruce, played by actor/comedian Matt Walsh.
An ex-cop, a pair of waitresses, and a bartender round out the supporting cast of regulars on the show who are sure to become the Frasier, Carla, Diane, and Woody of this modern-day TV watering hole. Expect to see other oddball characters – including a porn director – on the 10-week series, which debuted March 2.
“There isn’t much scripted dialogue.” – Ian Roberts
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“There is a plot, there’s a story like in a standard sitcom. The scripts are plotted out, like a regular sitcom. But much of what the actors say is left up to them. There isn’t much scripted dialogue,” Roberts said of the show.
The best improv, Roberts added, looks scripted and rehearsed, but isn’t.
“When improv can begin with a single suggestion and, without using gimmicks or tricks, looks like the best sketch comedy, I think that’s the greatest improv you’ll see,” said Roberts, who admires the work of Monty Python and Abbott and Costello.
Improv roots
After studying drama at Grinnell University in Iowa, Roberts moved to the Midwest, where he was soon immersed in the local theater and stand-up comedy scene where he met Walsh, Matthew Besser, Drew Franklin, Adam McKay, Ali Farahnakian, and Rick Roman – fellow actors who would help shape his developing comedic style.
“We all met out of Chicago,” Roberts said. “The thing we all had in common was that we all trained with Del Close, who is probably the best improv teacher in the country. Since we were friends, we started Upright Citizens Brigade.”
Performing throughout Chicago for six years, the troupe honed its improvisational theater through frequent live shows.
“Close developed a long-form improvisational style known as ‘the Harold,’ ” Roberts said, a style that greatly influenced the Brigade’s work. “It has scenes that recur, so you don’t just do one-off scenes [the way many other improvisational groups do]. You come back to your earlier scenes later in time and you have the scenes tie up together. In stand-up comedy, it’s called a call-back, and those are the jokes that get the biggest laughs. So, obviously, we hope to do the same thing.”
Eventually, the troupe moved to New York City in hopes of getting on TV while still being able to perform live gigs in small theaters.
Their plan worked. Within months of their move, they were getting booked for television appearances and soon landed their own show on Comedy Central in 1998. (The show ended two years later.)
“It may sound effortless, but we did many, many live shows where we had like six people in the audience,” Roberts laughed. “And if it hadn’t been for my folks coming to some of those shows, we wouldn’t have had half those people in the audience.”
Roberts’ parents, Donald and Penny, still live in Secaucus.
Since then, the members of the Upright Citizens Brigade have changed. Some people have left the troupe, while others like Roberts have remained.
Through the Brigade’s success, Roberts has been able to branch out into other projects. Last year he appeared in the final season of Comedy Central’s “Reno 911,” on which he played the character Sgt. Declan. He and Walsh developed “Players” between other projects and while operating the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York and Los Angeles with other troupe members.
Episodes of the 10-week series “Players” can be seen on Spike TV each Tuesday at 10:30 p.m. Outtakes from the show and past episodes can be seen at www.SpikeTV.com.
E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.