The Chicago improv scene is sure to be turned on its head this Saturday, as L.A.-based group Underbelly performs for the Tenth Annual Chicago Improv Festival. Instead of frantically searching for the next laugh, the group wants to explore the darker side of improv, allowing themselves to take inspiration in the moment. Topics reach from politics to, well, the “underbelly” of everyday emotional experiences. Committed to “improv at its most organic core,” group member Rebecca Field, who appeared in R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” video and is now a star on the TV drama “October Road,” says their show “…is not ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’” But that doesn’t mean there won’t be laughs. Field assures, “There’s a lot of comedy in darkness.”
Underbelly performs April 28 at the Annoyance Theater.