Bay Cities Improv

Jon Robitaille founded Bay Cities Improv Company in 2013 because of his love for the art of improvisational comedy. He studied improv at Carolina Improv in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina before moving to Fairhope. At the time, there was no improv in the area at all.

Jon was heavily involved with Theatre 98 in Fairhope as an actor, director, and producer. He also served as the technical director and started the Christmas radio play at the theater which later moved to the Eastern Shore Art Center where they performed the radio classics, Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes. They were performing short-form improv and teaching classes there until the pandemic shut them down. He hopes to resume these in the next few months.

In 2019, Jon produced murder mysteries on the Perdido Queen in Mobile. He did two shows a month, but it quickly grew to four shows a week. That show morphed from a standard murder mystery format to what they now call the Murder Creek Mystery Show. It is set in the fictional town of Murder Creek somewhere in the middle of the Mobile River Delta. 

The show engages the audience, as every member is a  suspect and an amateur detective. Every show is as unique as the diversity of the audience. The mayor of the town is selected from the audience and it’s his or her job to choose the suspects and eventually the murderer. The actors are only given an outline to work with and the rest of the show is improvised. Each show incorporates a little song and dance as well.

Bay Cities Improv hopes to debut, The Pirate’s Curse, very soon as a weekend brunch cruise on the Perdido Queen, catered by Naman’s Catering in Mobile.
It is loosely based on stories of pirates that sailed the waters of Mobile Bay. Set in the 1820s, the show is perfect for family audiences and children from 3 to 103. Actors are trained to “read the audience” for use of subtle adult humor that is included. 

Jon is currently rebuilding Bay Cities’ improv classes and has partnered with Innovation Portal in Mobile. He is developing a new signature improv comedy show that will redefine the typical improv show. Much like the Murder Creek Mystery Show, it will incorporate song and dance and a lot of satire. It will be called Operation Improv.

Bay Cities Improv is actively seeking a permanent theater home in Mobile. There are roughly 15 to 20 actors in the company and each one of them gets paid per performance. The actors, mostly from the Scenic 98 Coastal area, have performed in many locations over the years including The Saenger Theater in Mobile and Boomtown in Biloxi. Jon also writes a weekly email newsletter based on the IMPROVactive lifestyle and it uses improv principles to make sense of everyday life.

As Jon says, “Stay IMPROVactive!”

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