Troupe founder: Improv comedy a good PHIT for Philly

TO A LARGE degree, the story of modern-day comedy has been written primarily in a handful of towns. New York and Los Angeles, obviously, are among them, but two others are just as important: Chicago and Toronto.

Both are permanent residences of Second City, the groundbreaking improvisational-comedy troupe that has been the training ground for a mind-boggling number of comedy megastars from Joan Rivers and Robert Klein to John Belushi and Gilda Radner, from Martin Short and Catherine O'Hara to Tina Fey and three current "Saturday Night Live" cast members.

But if Greg Maughan has his way, Philadelphia will one day hold its own as a petri dish for film and television comedy.

The 30-something Maughan is the founder and executive director of Philadelphia Improv Theater (PHIT), an almost-nine-year-old group based in the Adrienne Theater's complex near Rittenhouse Square. PHIT is both a school and a performance company, simultaneously tutoring students in scripted and ad-libbed comedy and providing a venue for their skills. And while Maughan has lofty goals for PHIT, its origins were as much about convenience as art.

Growing up in suburban Detroit, Maughan was, as a teen, involved with the Motor City's Second City outpost. But he left after high school to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where, by dint of his father's status as a professor, he was offered a free ride. Although he was a liberal-arts major (and holds a master's in government), comedy was never far from his thoughts. But instruction in same was.

"There was really very little comedy going on in the city," recalled Maughan. "[The Center City comedy club] Helium hadn't opened yet; ComedySportz existed but was only doing a show one day a week.

"So I ended up traveling to New York City to take classes. I was taking up a lot of time doing that. I thought . . . surely somebody else must realize the city needed a big comedy theater. After years of waiting around for that person to emerge, I decided I was tired of it. So I started the theater.

"The idea was to train people to eventually become performers . . . and also to not have to travel to New York every week."

PHIT was founded solely for instructional purposes. Today, education and performance are the twin engines that drive its strategy, with one or the other (or both) happening virtually every day of the week. And it's not just aspiring performers who avail themselves of improv instruction, which is offered during five yearly "semesters."

"You don't have to be someone whose dream is to appear on 'Saturday Night Live,' " Maughan insisted, referencing students who use the classes to bolster their public-speaking self-confidence. He added that some students are salespeople looking for an edge.

Still, Maughan knows it's on the artistic side of things where PHIT's ultimate success will be measured.

"The sky's the limit," he responded when asked about his ambitions for the organization, suggesting that PHIT could one day be an equal of Second City or The Groundlings, of Los Angeles (another unit boasting numerous alumni stars).

"It's a brave new world with the Internet and social media," he reasoned. "You don't have to go to New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. We're going to go more into podcasting, video and Web series.

"For us to end up [like Second City], as a training ground for the best comedic minds in the country . . . and we become a place where [producers] come to find [new talent] would be my dream - that and that I'm retired and living in Bermuda."

For more information on PHIT, go to phillyimprovtheater.com.

This review won't be nearly as rough on "Arcadia" as the close to three hours in its venue's glorified banquet chairs were on my posterior. But it is hard to give a full-blown rave to Tom Stoppard's time-traveling play being staged by Center City's Lantern Theater through Nov. 2 at the intimate St. Stephen's Theater.

I wouldn't mind raving unequivocally, but to be perfectly honest, I'm not quite sure I fully understood the point - or points - of the extremely verbose production performed on a single set.

Ping-ponging between 1809 and the present day, "Arcadia" seems to be full - not to mention a little full of itself - of subjects including, as best I could figure, the nobility of the eternal quest for knowledge, whether the 18th-century poet Lord Byron killed a fellow rhymester in a duel on the grounds of the English estate in which the play is set, the origins of some of the most complex physics theories ever devised and, of course, sex.

So, we have two loooong acts with people bloviating in British accents about such matters. Not that there aren't plenty of laughs to be had, especially in the opening scene, which is borderline hilarious, but which gives something of a false impression of what is to follow.

The ensemble cast is most impressive (and not only for learning all those lines). Particularly noteworthy are Alex Boyle, who delivers a convincing portrayal of the adolescent Thomasina, a braniac who makes Stephen Hawking look like a "Dumb and Dumber" character; Joe Guzman as Bernard, a high-voltage academic with a near-obsession for solving the above-mentioned murder mystery; and Maxwell Eddy as Septimus, Thomasina's cocksure tutor. They and their fellow cast members benefit from Kathryn MacMillan's taut direction.

"Arcadia" is a challenge-intellectually and (thank you, chairs!) physically. But it holds rewards for those with the patience and intellectual capacity to stay with it.

And if you do go, feel free to drop me a line and explain it to me.