RISE Comedy Festival 2022 – Team Jam hosted by Basement Doctors

Bring your team (or make a team that night) and put their name in the flamingo bucket and get some stage time at the Festival! Set lengths are determined by number of participating teams.

Join us for the 2022 RISE Comedy Festival improv & sketch comedy extravaganza!  We’ve got amazing sketch & improv teams from all over the world converging on our stage and showcasing their talents all weekend.  See below for the set schedule and more info!

Wednesday 7/13

• 7:00 – 8:00 PM – Free!
  • Barkley Intensive Team Jam:
• 8:00 – 9:00 PM- Free!
  • Basement Doctors Team Jam:

Thursday 7/14

• 7:00 – 8:00 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • Juls ‘n Lis:  Alissa Ahlberg and Julianna Beckert are Juls & Lis.  This bonded pair of friends will draw you into an imaginative world so silly and playful, you’ll be giggling all the way home. Their characters will pull at your heartstrings as they build dramatically comedic scenes out of thin air. Come watch Juls & Lis act out moments as touching as they are hilarious, all made up on the spot.
  • Tapestry
  • BENT:  Bent is Denver’s premiere LGBT comedy improv team. Living life queer infuses our comedy with a unique perspective. Get ready for a rollicking good time that we make up on the spot just for you and no one else! As an all LGBT team, we bring a unique perspective that you will not experience elsewhere. Get ready to laugh your face off!
• 8:00 – 9:00 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • Bingewatch:  Bingewatch: The Lost Season is all about what you love and why you love it! Where the TV multiverse comes to you.  Bingewatch (Diana Brown and Dan Wilson) takes two of the shows you’re binge watching and mixes them together to give you something wholly new, yet delightfully familiar; an episode from a lost season of a show that never existed, chock full of your favorite binge worthy goodness. Experience your favorite TV from an alternate reality. Watch what you love!
  • Barkley:  Barkley uses organically generated worlds where characters reckon with personal choices and relationships against an absurd and hilarious background.
• 9:00 – 10:30 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • Intensive Student Showcase
  • Basement Doctors:  The Basement Doctors are a long form improv troupe in which none of the performers has a PhD . Each show is inspired by a text message from the audience and always gives doses of excitement and emotion. Come out and join us for a laugh… Doctors’ orders.
  • Hot Nap:  Hot Nap has hosted a weekly improv cage-match, The Duel, for over 8 years.

Friday 7/15

• 7:00 – 8:00 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • Big Kids Table:  Big Kids Table Sketch is a house team at Rise Comedy in Denver, CO. This predominantly female cast explores everything from the eccentricities of the mundane to the everyday fantastical. Directed by Valerie Vasilas.
  • TVunscripted:  Based out of Denver, Colorado, TVunscripted is a fast-paced, highly-physical exploration of the comedy inherent in everyday life by veteran improvisers Ryder Tam and Gabe Valdez. The duo’s creativity and chemistry has sold out shows across Colorado and beyond. Drawing on experience from The Groundlings, iO, UCB, The Second City, and Rise Comedy, TVunscripted blends character, game, and emotion to create hilariously unique comedy.
  • Trouble With Shapes:  Trouble with Shapes Presents Thunderstood, A one man sketch show in which A.J. Schraeder takes you through a multi media presentation that is chock full of absurdity, weird characters, and outlandish puppets. A.J. has been an official selection at SF Sketchfest, The Out of Bounds Comedy Festival, The North Carolina Comedy Festival, Chicago Sketchfest & Toronto Sketchfest. In the advertising world he’s sold content and scripts to major brands such as Doritos and LEGO.
• 8:00 – 9:00 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • Pawn Takes Queen:  3 actors. 30 minutes. 1 hell of a good time.
  • Mouse Couch:  Mouse Couch is top shelf, top tier, top of the pops long-form improv that don’t stop. It’s the funniest fever dream you’ve ever had where characters, scenes, and ideas transform and blend into one another in kaleidoscopic style. It’s fast-paced comedy and ceaseless surprise that will both satisfy you and leave you wanting more.
• 9:00 – 10:30 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • Orange Tuxedo
  • Hit and Run: Musical Improv®:  Colorado’s longest running improv show! HNR creates an hour-long fully improvised Broadway-style musical with live musical accompaniment, based on multiple suggestions from the audience.
  • Pictures Of Spaghetti:  Formed in 2015, Pictures of Spaghetti is a long-form improv team from Orange County, California that performs the “Usual Suspects” form. They play fast and loose, following what’s interesting for as long as it’s interesting.

Saturday 7/16

• 6:00 – 7:00 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • TBD
  • Laugh Track:  Laugh Track is a fast-paced improv comedy show featuring short form games that will keep you laughing all night.
• 7:00 – 8:00 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • Community Theater 3000
  • Dr. Bitslinger:  Has life in general felt absurd to you lately? Come talk it out with us. Dr. Bitslinger is here to help. Started from an audience suggestion, we’ll recall our real life experiences and create short improvised bits inspired from these stories. We banter amongst each other and with the audience for an immersive, friendly fun-time.
• 8:00 – 9:00 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • Festival Teacher Show
• 9:00 – 10:30 PM – $13 adv/$16 door
  • District 9:  District 9 is a team of BIPOC improvisers that build worlds, create characters, and tell original stories – authentically and unapologetically. Get to know the performers as people based on stories they tell prompted by audience suggestions, then watch the improv unfold!
  • Lynn & Andrew:  Lynn & Andrew present “The Couple Next Door” – a voyeuristic look into the private lives of the characters all around us. Lynn & Andrew will explore the relationships of these couples and the stories that unfold in the world around them.
  • Four First Names:  A young Carolina couple experiencing the beauty of natural childbirth in their own tub. A 12-year-old Tennessee girl gaining confidence and empowerment from an impromptu trip with her previously misunderstood bedroom monster. A Virginia woman discovering improved self-esteem and an equal footing with her overbearing mother after losing more than 100 pounds. And a Colorado couple whose mountaintop engagement provided a sneak peek of their journey together all the way into the afterlife. What do they all have in common? They were celebrated with their own musical through the narrative interpretations of Four First Names. Join Chris Barry, Richard Paul and a rotating music director in an uplifting and humorous musical exploration of a pivotal moment from an audience member’s life.