Kansas City Improv Comedy
Tantrum performs on the 2nd Friday of the month at the Westport Coffee House's Theater. Our shows are $10 and start at 8PM.
Each show we bring in a local personality who speak about topics that our audience suggests. We then base scenes either directly or loosely-based on the speaker's monologues.
Past speakers have included:
- Valissa Smith: Former local anchorwoman
- Kevin Dilmore: Star Trek novelist
- Crosby Kemper III: Local banker
- Jim Howard: Screenplay & greeting card writer
- Darren Story: Host of local late night TV show
- Sassy B.: Local roller derbier
Contact our reservation line at 816-678-8886 for seats anytime.
February 12th, 2010
Westport Coffee House
Kim Carrington
Poster designer's critique: Alright, this one I like a little better, and it captures more of what my train of thought is for this series of posters. It is a visualization of content from the September 21, 2007 show. Scene starters appear in the 'color' of the person who said it, and the dots represent a person who was in that scene. I think it is kind of boring, but I also like it a lot. If I would looking a wall full of posters, I would look at this, because it doesn't look like a regular poster to me.
January 15th, 2010
Westport Coffee House
Michael Byars
Poster designer's critique: It is the start of something new. This series of posters, which should go through 2010, have a new typeface, cleaner design, and a common theme. There is a joke here, but I don't know if people will get it. It is a 'script' of our first show as a group on 9/21/07. I transcribed the first couple of scenes - with some minor replacing of words that I thought might not be approved in an office (e.g. 'nice people' = 'strippers.') Something doesn't quite feel right about it to me, but it is the first in a series.
November 13th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Kevin Dilmore
Poster designer's critique: I knew this would be the last of this series of posters, so I made some callbacks to the first poster. The colors are exactly the same, and windmills go around and around and the whole organic earth thing from the first poster is evoked. The Spanish quote is from the opening line of Don Quixote - "whose name I do not care to recall." Clearly, I must have been depressed or something when I made this one.
October 9th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Jonathan Bender
Poster designer's critique: I like this one a little bit. Bats and October. Can you see the subtle connection? Yeah it's obvious, but the chandelier looks pretty cool.
August 14th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Jim Howard
Poster designer's critique: This one suffers from a lot of the same issues as June 09 - it is just a more embellished version. At least there is some connectivity - the music in the back is La Mer, a piece about the sea. And there's boats, and the pirates on this boat are probably watching an improv performance in the pirate galley, right? No - but at least it is attractive.
July 10th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Scott Sjoberg
Poster designer's critique: I'm not a big fan of this one. It is trying to look like the other posters, but it doesn't have a message and the consequences are apparent in my book. It all looks pretty, but the whole thing is disjointed. I can do better than this, but hey I was just coming off a month that included my wedding and honeymoon. Get off my case.
June 12th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Kevin Dilmore
Poster designer's critique: I didn't design this poster. I was on my honeymoon - not thinking about posters one little bit.
May 8th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Cindy Weiner
Poster designer's critique: Sometimes, when you do a poster a month, you feel like they are all running together. Just hanging a new date on top and sending it out. This is how I was feeling in May of 2009.
April 15th, 2009
Plaza Library Auditorium
Crosby Kemper III
April 10th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Darron Story
Poster designer's critique: One thing that is frightening to this poster designer is the government telling me how to live my life and how to design my posters. So I pulled out a little old-school Americana that we used to send a similar message to the British government. The Brits taxed all sorts of things: sugar, tea, all official documents, etc... But when they taxed improv performaces, they crossed the line, and people revolted.
March 18th, 2009
Plaza Library Auditorium
Cindy Weiner
March 13th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Sassy B. (Aris Chapman)
Poster designer's critique: This one is all about kings, the poster in the back is a map of the Roman Empire at the height of its expansion into Western Europe, and the crown that is most clear is the one saying our tagline - 'It's fun to misbehave.' Somewhere in there is a message from all history (American and otherwise) that still applies today. Oh, it is also about improv.
February 18th, 2009
Plaza Library Auditorium
Kevin Dilmore
February 13th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Kevin Dilmore
Poster designer's critique: The theme of this poster is time. To be more specific the time that I did not have to craft a beautiful, well thought out poster. I was planning a wedding around this time, and doing posters was a task only remembered on the night that it was due.
January 9th, 2009
Westport Coffee House
Jim Howard
Poster designer's critique: This poster is about fear. I put in a rather frightening looking tree. But to give the poster a postive spin, which is what this poster designer is all about, I had the bird navigating through it as he flew away. As the bird flies through it he becomes clearer. Somewhere there is a message in there - convoluted, and likely a little silly.
November 28th, 2008
Westport Coffee House
Tom Farnan
Poster designer's critique: This sucker is pretty political. I started reading Atlas Shrugged (my favorite book) after the election. In the poster Atlas has shrugged.
November 12th, 2008
Plaza Library Auditorium
Jim Howard
October 15th, 2008
Plaza Library Auditorium
Dan Walsh
September 17th, 2008
Central Library Auditorium
Valissa Smith
August 22nd, 2008
Westport Coffee House
Josh Steinmetz
Poster designer's critique: I like this one alot too. It is very pro business, which is just like its designer. It is based on that evolutionary graphic where the monkey turns into a man, well this monkey did one better. Maybe not everyone in the group feels the same as I - but I design the posters.
June 20th, 2008
Westport Coffee House
Poster designer's critique: I followed up one of favorites with this steaming pile. Some group members commented that our posters weren't fun, so this is my attempt to be fun. And a freaking robot is the best I could come up with. This poster must represent something I have repressed deep inside. Here's to me being able to keep it that way because, in my mind, this poster pretty much blows.
March 15th, 2008
Westport Coffee House
Poster designer's critique: This is one of my favorites, and it is when the posters started getting a little political. This is the bull on Wall Street in NYC. This one is powerful and optimistic - which are two things that I love about this country. Plus it has a good Tantrum quality, like the bull is getting ready to steamroll some bears.
November 30th, 2007
Westport Coffee House
Poster designer's critique: This one didn't work out so well. I think it is too cute by a half. So there is a fly on the poster and we are the flyswatter. Excellent message, right? Not so much. When it printing you couldn't even see the flyswatter very well. But I learned a lesson about printing colors that are close together in the spectrum.
September 21st, 2007
Westport Coffee House
Poster designer's critique:Our first poster. There were two things that I was trying to show - the improv side of things as organic and the Tantrum side of things as explosive. The tree is an obvious reference to the organic, and the lines going everywhere in the background are the explosive. I spent a lot of time on this one and I think that it worked out pretty good.
