Whose Show Is It Anyway? ‘Hyprov’ Blends Audience Participation With Improv Comedy Pro Colin Mochrie

Standup comedy is often – or always – about surprising audiences and creating a unique experience. One Canadian-based touring production, featuring a seasoned standup veteran, seems to have cracked the code of doing just that, in a whole new way.

“I’m always looking for things that take me outside my comfort zone, because one of my fears as I’m getting older is that I don’t want to get too comfortable,” says Colin Mochrie, a noted improv comedian who became a household name as co-star of the popular “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” TV show that ran on ABC from 1998 to 2004. 

Uncomfortable is one word for what can happen during improv sets, especially ones involving audience members, but Mochrie, along with master hypnotist Asad Mecci, has taken the “Hyprov” concept – improv standup that includes hypnotized audience members – to multiple continents and some of its biggest shows yet.

“I want to be able to keep challenging myself and challenging the art form. This came along, so we did it.” The show is on the road right now, with gigs at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, D.C. (Dec. 18), New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark (Dec. 20), and two shows at the OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ontario, a 5,000-capacity theater (Jan. 2-3). Just announced for April are a run of dates in Australia and New Zealand.

Aptly dubbed “Yes, It’s Real” tour, the show leans in on both the silly and serious. Just look at social media comments from participants, audience members with no prior training or connection to the show.

“So I call for 20 volunteers, and then I hypnotize them,” says Mecci, whose other endeavors include recording and releasing an album, An Exploration of Hypnotic Sound , with musician Rufus Wainwright. “I’m looking for physiological feedback, for changes in heart rate, location of respiration, breathing changes, skin color changes and other responses,” says Mecci. “If I see these indicators, then I’ll keep them on stage. If I don’t, if I don’t see them in the volunteers, then I’ll ask them to leave the stage area.”

The chosen ones take part in the show, and anything can happen.

“Like any improv show, you know, you’ve got a 50-50 chance at best that it’s gonna work,” says Mochrie. “So, with this one, I think the audience gives us a little more leeway because they know we’re dealing with random people who may or may not have any improv ability.”

“In many ways, it was nothing like I thought it was going to be,” Mochrie adds. “I thought it was going to be being a traffic cop moving bodies around, but it didn’t become that at all. I’m working with four or five other improvisers, granted, who don’t know the rules of improv, but who are pretty much accepting everything I and Asad say, and adding so much to the scenes we’re doing. It keeps it fresh for both of us, because we’re just constantly on our heels and making adjustments as we go along.”

Mecci says the show has played 200 cities across North America since the concept debuted in 2015. This year, they sold out the National Arts Center in Ottawa (2,000 capacity), recently completed the OƯ-Broadway run in New York City at the Daryl Roth Theatre and a Las Vegas Residency in Harrah’s Showroom at Harrah’s Las Vegas. A CBC Gem comedy special premiered on Oct. 17, with hopes of wider distribution to the U.S. and abroad.

“What’s exciting is that now we’ve had 11 improvisers in the show performing, and everybody brings their own style to the show,” says Mecci. “We just had Jeff Hiller, who won an Emmy for “Somebody Somewhere.” It’s so interesting to see a master improviser working with random volunteers that they’ve never met before and performing an improv show for the audience. The audience, at times, is skeptical because they think that we’re using plants. We’ve never met any of these people before. The people who are laughing the hardest are the people in the audience who know the individual on stage, because they know they aren’t plants on stage.”

With the name of the show seeming to try to get ahead of the question still asked by many — be it questioning whether the participants are in on the show or the concept of hypnotism itself — one of HYPROV’s ultimate accomplishments would be to put the question to rest for good.

“It’s really irritating,” Mochie says with a laugh. “We’re showing what happens when you get out of your way and allow yourself to be creative on stage. I’ve heard the same thing about improv forever, too. People always say that you’ve probably written something for every possible suggestion you could get. Part of the reason I improvise is I’m lazy and don’t have to do work, people shout things at me and I make things up. “