Local Business Spotlight: Interview with ANUBIS IMPROV’s David Hamilton

When I first found out about Anubis Improv, I wanted to find out more so I could help promote this new and interesting Oxford business. I never imagined it would lead to my own involvement on a deeper level. I told myself improv comedy is not for me—I’m too busy; I’m not comfortable performing; I’m not clever enough.

Fast forward about six months, and I am now here to tell you, improv is for everyone. After attending their hybrid show, Half and Half, and meeting founder David Hamilton in person, I decided to take the free Level 0 workshop just for kicks. (I was still telling myself that I wouldn’t want to get on stage and wing it, never mind that I’m much too busy.) But at the workshop, something happened. I laughed—a lot. I felt silly and fun and creative and then I realized all those things had been scarce in my life for a while. Yes, I have a young child, but this was a different kind of silly. This was laughing and playing with other adults.

I recently read in a health newsletter* that “Stanford researchers found that the average four-year-old laughs 300 times per day, while the average forty-year-old laughs 300 times every ten weeks.” It goes on to cite the health benefits of laughter, including stress and anxiety relief, lower blood pressure and inflammation, and overall improvements in well-being.

Something clicked. With my partner’s enthusiastic encouragement, I decided to take the plunge and enroll in Anubis Improv’s Level 1 class. Not only do I get to have fun with cool people every week, I have gained immense benefits from participating in this program, including some precious new friendships.

(Interview has been lightly edited for clarity.)
*Arnold’s PUMP CLUB newsletter, March 15, 2024.

Find Anubis on their website AnubisImprov.com, Instagram @anubisimprov, Facebook AnubisImprov, and LinkedIn

How did you get started with improv?
In 2013, I found improv classes in New Orleans. I was coming off my first career as a tour manager and I thought I wanted to pursue something in a creative field. I acted when I was younger. I thought maybe that would be the area, so I decided to take both classes to see if I’d like to perform, to theoretically pursue acting as a career, and then from the first month of taking classes, I knew that this was the thing that I was passionate about in a way I’d never been passionate about something before. So, I started taking three classes a week and doing every workshop and volunteering at the theater. I graduated in 2014 from that program, and then by the end of 2014, I was teaching. And then from 2014 to 2018, I ended up as Conservatory director, teacher, coach, building manager, and much other stuff at the at the theater in New Orleans.

What is it about improv that that resonated with you so much?
I went in thinking of myself as not a funny person. I was a pretty serious kid and young adult. I think the surprise of finding this new way to express myself comedically was a real big draw. Also, the just the value of being heard and of listening in that way and communicating in this very unique way that that we do in improv. I think all that really drew me, too. Also, the community is always really sweet because it’s a community of people who are listening to each other and respecting each other’s ideas.

In addition to the curriculum with Anubis, you also do workshops for businesses. What sort of skills can be gained from it, and how do you convince business owners that this is a good thing for their employees to do?
For salespeople, improv is a one-to-one relationship of listening to customers and truly hearing what they’re asking for. And not just thinking about what you’re going to respond, and the confidence to respond to that with the information that you have helps salesforce development in such a clear way. I think there’s also the ability for improv to help with executive education, especially as it relates to listening and communicating expectations and collaborating with people. And then I think a lot of the companies want to just have fun with each other. Especially coming out of COVID, we had a handful of workshops [where folks] haven’t worked together or seen each other in person in two and a half years, so [they] just want to have a good time with each other, so it works as an icebreaker and a team building experience in that way because you’re collaborating with each other. To do something fun that also generates these inside jokes and shared experience—that’s valuable for companies as well.

Do you think that carries over into life skills for just about anyone?
It really does. The surface level—and not to say that it’s shallow—but the surface level stuff is about actively listening and communicating your ideas confidently. That’s the “yes, and”—the fundamental principle of improv. So just on the surface that will help you with personal and professional relationships. But then deeper than that, there’s something really important about, as an adult, opening yourself up to joy and creativity and wonder. The childlike energies and emotions that we access in improv, we so rarely access as adults. It’s extremely valuable for us to be laughing, just taking classes and coming to a space for two hours a week to just laugh and have a good time. It is so unfortunately rare as adults, and then just letting yourself be free to be creative and be imaginative and to discover stuff. I think all that on a deeper level is a real transformative aspect of improv writing.

Please talk a little bit about the formula of improv, and what that means in terms of long-form improv, which is what Anubis does.
The formula wasn’t a structural part of the curriculum at the theatre [where] took classes at first, but I learned it and it really helped my very analytical, organizational brain. It really helped me understand what I was trying to do. In this art form, you start from nothing. You’re trying to find what you’re doing, and you’re creating everything in the moment. I really latched on to this formula. So, as I was developing my curriculum, I took this formula and basically just turned it into the first level of classes, so the first eight weeks of our curriculum is the formula of improv. We find the details of the scene, we find who we are, where we are, what we’re doing, and how we feel about it, how our characters feel about it. And then from that information we latch on to ideally the very first weird or unusual thing we communicate. And that’s the weird or unusual thing that we want to focus on. We bear hug it, which means we both focus on it with clear intent, and then we heighten, which is the improv comedy way of finding punch lines, basically, and continuing the scene. We make it better, we make it worse. We make it weird, or we make it whatever. And so that formula finding. Who are we? Where are we? What are we doing? How do we feel about it? Searching in that and finding the weird, unusual thing, bear hugging it, and heightening it is what we use as our fundamentals to understand what we’re trying to do in creating an improv scene from scratch.

I think most people are more familiar with is the style of Whose Line Is It, Anyway? that has either audience participation or suggestions…How is that different?
So Whose Line Is short-form improv, which is uses the same skills, right? It’s still improv comedy, and it’s very fun. Obviously, Whose Line is very successful and very fun to watch. In short form, they structure each piece as a game. So here are the rules of the game, and you’re improvising scenes within those rules. In long form improv, we take away those structured games and we just have kind of a free form, an empty stage to develop our scenes. [When improv troupes] take suggestions from the audience to get started on their scenes, I think part of that historically is to assure the audience that this is all being made up, that we’re not actually working off a script, or haven’t had any discussions beforehand about who’s going to do what. I just trust the audience to believe that we’re making it all up, so we don’t need suggestions. I also think that it provides an extra layer of discovery, an extra layer of the ability to create if we are literally just walking out onto a blank stage with no suggestions and nothing, and just seeing what comes. I think it provides us with even more opportunity for discovery, which I think is valuable.

Tell us about the free workshop that’s coming up.
We try to regularly do free workshops to introduce people to improv. Generally, most people who come have never done improv. And for those who have, [it’s] to introduce people to our style of improv, and interest people to take a class or all four levels. The next workshop, we call it Level 0, is on Sunday, May 19 at 4 pm at The Powerhouse. We usually do these on Saturday afternoons, but we’re doing this one on Sunday evening because we have our student showcase show that night at 7:30 at The Powerhouse. So, what we’re hoping is people will come in for do this Level 0 free introductory workshop. You don’t have to have any experience. You don’t have to be funny. You don’t even really have to like performing. It’s for everybody. It’s very easy and very fun. It’s an hour and a half. So come at four, do this level 0 workshop, go eat some dinner, and come back and see our showcase show, which will include a level two class and a very special level four graduation. When group has completed all four levels of our curriculum, we do a special little graduation ceremony.

Pre-register HERE for Anubis Improv’s Level 0 Workshop on Sunday, May 19, from 4–5:30 at The Powerhouse – IT’S FREE!

Tell us more about the classes. There’s a new Level one starting soon; how would one go about signing up?
We are partnered with the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council. That’s part of why everything is at The Powerhouse. They’ve been wonderful. The registration goes through the Arts Council. Their website is oxfordarts.com, and if you scroll down on their main page, you’ll see classes, and the registration is already open for our next level one class. We try to do level zero classes close to the level one classes. Obviously, to encourage people to sign up for the level one class. Our next level one class will be on Wednesdays from 6 to 8 pm beginning May 29th. Those classes will also take place at The Powerhouse. If you come to the Level 0, we’ll have a sheet with QR code where you can sign up right then.

The classes are 8 weeks long, two hours every week, same day, same time for eight weeks. The classes are $235 for YAC members, $250 for non-members, and YAC [does have] scholarships as available. All that information is on the Oxford Arts site and on our site, anubisimprov.com. You click on classes, you click on Oxford classes and scroll down to the improv level one and all that information links to the form registration.

Register for Anubis Improv Level 1 HERE – Wednesdays from 6–8 pm beginning May 29

Why did you call it Anubis? What’s the significance of the name?
I originally made up some little jokey thing about, you know, Anubis is the Egyptian god of the underworld. It’s kind of the guide to the underworld. And I used [say], well, you know, improv can be scary. So, we’re going to guide you through the darkness of your own creativity. But, you know, not really true. The reality of it is, I’m fascinated by and mildly obsessed with ancient Egyptian culture and generally kind of a dark person. I was born on Halloween, so that tends to communicate kind of my general vibe, and I thought Anubis Improv sounded cool. It was also there was nothing else called Anubis Improv, so all of our materials, our social media, our website, everything is Anubis Improv without having to add numbers or dashes or underlines or anything. I knew it would be easy for branding purposes that way. I thought, you know what would look cool is Anubis in a suit. So, we’ve got the Jackal-headed god Anubis in a suit as our main logo, which I think is fun.

What are your goals for Anubis Improv going into the future for both Oxford and New Orleans?
I’ll start in New Orleans because we are in the midst of a very exciting transition over there. We had these two big workshops. One of them[was] a three-week online workshop with Rich Talarico, a comedy writing workshop. Rich Talarico is a really well-regarded comedy writer. Most famously, he wrote the substitute teacher sketch from Key & Peele, the A-Aron Sketch. Which just actually got added to the Smithsonian museum’s cultural wing. And then we just had Kevin MacDonald. For those of us who remember Kids in the Hall, the Canadian sketch troop from the 90s, he was one of the members. He came down and did two in-person sketch workshops and a show last weekend. So, we’ve got all this great momentum and we’re about to launch sketch classes in New Orleans, which we will ultimately be bringing those to Oxford. So, this whole ramp up with Rich and Kevin doing sketch stuff, we had been hearing from several of our improv students and people in the community that they were anxious for sketch classes, so we’re developing those in New Orleans.

My good friend and the current head of New Orleans operations, Nick Napolitano, is going to become a co-owner of Anubis and officially be taking over the New Orleans operation as almost entirely separate from the Oxford operation. It’s basically been me running Oxford and New Orleans with a lot of help from Nick on the ground in New Orleans. But this is going to separate it entirely, and that should be happening in the next month or so. That’s a very exciting transition in New Orleans. We also have a small classroom space in New Orleans, and we partner with our dear friends who run another comedy theater called Big Couch to do our show. We’re taking over Sunday nights at Big Couch, so there will always be Anubis shows on Sunday nights at Big Couch. Eventually maybe five-year plan, hopefully a little earlier than that. We’re looking for our own little theater space in New Orleans.

The goals in Oxford are similar in that we’re looking for a space. You know, we’re hoping to have at least a classroom space. The Arts Council has been super helpful, but they’re so busy that scheduling [is] difficult. So we’re hoping to have our own classroom space in the next several months, hopefully by the end of the year is the goal. If we can find a space that’s large—I mean, we really don’t need more than 1,000 square feet—but if we can find a space that’s large enough to have a little 50-seat black box theater as well as classroom space, then we’re hoping to do that as well. So that’s the goal in Oxford is to get our own space and start having more regular shows to help build the community and continue to collaborate with people, like Connor King, who’s been doing so much comedy stuff in Oxford. And the regional troupes, [like in] Memphis and elsewhere. So that’s the long-term goal in Oxford is to have a little space for this community to continue to thrive. And if there are any people out there who want to be patrons of the arts, we will gladly accept patronage in in the form of space to do shows or classes.

How did you end up in Oxford? What brought you here from New Orleans?
I grew up in New Orleans, spent all my life there. In my early 40s, my partner, Maggie White, went to get her master’s degree in Glasgow, Scotland. So I went with her, and we spent a year from ‘21 to ‘22 in Glasgow. We then moved down to Oxford because this is her hometown. While she applied for PhD programs to see where we were going to end up, she got into Ole Miss. It was a perfect program for her, and so we set down roots at Ole Miss. As soon as she got that confirmation letter and accepted it, I reached out to the YAC to start doing classes, so we set down some roots here for her to get her PhD and that’s what brought me here. We moved here in the fall of ‘22 and I think I started my first classes in January of ’23, if I’m remembering correctly.

Generally [I want to say that] improv is for everyone. You don’t have to be a performer. You don’t have to be young. You don’t have to be old, you don’t have to be funny. You don’t have to be anything. Improv is literally for everyone. So please come give it a shot. You have nothing to lose by doing a free workshop. Bring your friends, bring your family. Bring grandma.