Sacramento State theatre alumnus Brian Crall believes anyone can perform standup comedy.

Now the owner of the Comedy Spot in Midtown, his club offers classes to those with a joke to tell.

“You don’t have to be a performer to take a class,” Crall said. “It’s a good release and laughter is the cheapest therapy you can find in town.”

The Comedy Spot takes up to 15 people for its classes and never has less than 12 people sign up. The age of the students currently range from people in their 20s to early 30s. Crall said he even has a student in one of his classes who is about 70 years old.

The performers break into developmental teams in a long-form improvisation structure called Harold. Developed by Del Close in Chicago during the 1950s, Harold starts with a single word, by looking for a diverse range of people to represent a wide audience. Harold teams are casted for a three month season and switch up after each season.

Adam Koppel, member of the Harold group Pinky Rings, said the audience always sees fresh material that hasn’t been rehearsed.

“None of the stuff you see on stage will be seen twice,” Koppel said. “We rehearse openings and format making sure we are working with each other and communicating effectively.”

Fellow Pinky Rings member Josh Kinkade said the performers must have a connection with each other to be able to work off one another’s comedic strengths.

“If you are the one coming out onstage first, you have the responsibility of saying who I am, the relationship I have with the other performer, where are we and what’s weird about me,” Kinkade said. “The other performer must be able to relate to the scene that the other performer created. The performers must be able to feed off each other to create a strong and funny scene. It should never be one performer creating the scene.”

But Harold is not the only type of improv people can get into. Anyone can get a sample of how the improvisation works and classes like Improv 101 teach basic skills.

Kinkade, who has been performer with Comedy Spot for two years, said some of the issues he has had onstage are situations he deals with in real life.

“It gives me an outlet to improve on those issues,” Kinkade said. “It gives [me] a place where (I) can do things, be crazy and horrible yet help me become a better performer.”

Crall said the people who show up for Improv Lab often come back the following week because of the amount of fun they had.

“For $5, where can you go anywhere else in Sacramento and laugh your ass off for two hours?” Crall said. “We don’t get a lot of people who just show up one time and never come back again. It’s a great thing to do on a Wednesday night when you have nothing else going on.”

Crall said he loves the environment that has been created at The Comedy Spot, but it was not too long ago when Comedy Spot was just a vision.

Crall created a show called “The Free Hooch Comedy Troupe” in 2001 that lasted for about five years. He took classes in Los Angeles at Upright Citizens Brigade while still living in Sacramento. Crall said he wanted to bring back what he learned in Los Angeles to Sacramento and transitioned into opening The Comedy Spot in 2005.

Originally located at 17th and Broadway in 2005, the venue held a 20-seat house with 16 in-house performers. In 2009, the club upgraded to its current venue on 20th street in Midtown with 80 in-house performers.

“[The Comedy Spot] is about comedy and our community,” Crall said. “We are all very close and take care of each other. Mostly because we don’t fit in anywhere else. We were the rejects and came together in this community – it’s amazing.”

Sammie Moreno can be reached at [email protected]