Today we’d like to introduce you to Joe Rapp.
Hi Joe, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
The Bearded Company started in 2006 at Minnesota State University Moorhead in Moorhead, Minnesota. We were just a few theater kids and thought, “hey, let’s do a few improv jams in our garage and see if folks come.” We were in no way improv experts, but wanted to give it a shot and thought it would be fun. Well, the first two were successful, so we moved the jams to campus and asked if anybody of those attending that wanted to perform as a group. A few people said yes and we had the first iteration of our group and first show on campus about a month later. As time went on, we added a few more members, performed more shows on campus and around Fargo/Moorhead and smartly or dumbly decided to set ourselves up as a legal business.
As the years went by we moved the group to Minneapolis and got ourselves a regular show at HUGE Improv Theater. We leaned into our theater backgrounds and focused on genre narrative-style improv, basically unscripted plays.
In 2014, one of my co-founders moved to Los Angeles and started a second group out there.
We have regularly been on the improv festival circuit since 2010 and have been fortunate to have been able to perform and teach in over 50 cities across the country. However, being able to perform regularly in Minneapolis at HUGE or at the Minnesota Fringe Festival is still the highlight.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being taken seriously, especially early on was tough. Being college-age definitely didn’t help make us look like “professionals.” However, over the years, we always worked hard to get out there in any way we could. We built a website, got audience testimonials, were early adopters of social media and honestly, just walked up and down the streets of Uptown in sandwich board signs letting people know we had a show that night.
Improv isn’t an easy sell. People would and still do regularly ask, “how do I know it’s good if it’s never the same?” It’s a good question, but flawed. Even scripted shows can be better or worse depending on the night, and they have a script. Our answer is to come find out for yourself. How do you know it won’t be good? Plus, being unscripted gives it an element no other show has, excitement in the unknown. No one will ever get to see the same show twice. So really, we’ve performed 100s and 100s of unique shows.
Making this a career is tough. Scripted theater is hard to make money in, improv just piles on to that. We have done shows in coffee shops, to theaters, to resorts. We sell merch. We offer workshops. Anything so that I can give back even a little money to my company members as their time and effort is definitely worth it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Improv. Specifically narrative improv. For me, the thing I’m most proud of is that we have made it 16 years and have groups in Minneapolis and Los Angeles. In some businesses, 16 years isn’t anything, but in improv, it’s long. We have created so many shows along the way and even created some that are serialized, which means the story continues from week to week, like Bearded Manor, a Downton Abbey-style show. However, our most popular and award-winning has been, Swords & Sorcery: The Improvised Fantasy Campaign. It’s based on D&D and uses an actual 20-sided dice to decide the fate of our heroes throughout the show. This show also inspired us to start our podcast based on the same concept, Break the Dice: The Improvised Campaign. We started it in January 2020 and it ended up being a true performance lifeline for the entire group.
What ultimately sets us apart from others is our commitment to storytelling. It’s easy in improv to always go for the funny thing, but we pride ourselves on also committing to the emotional moments. Instead of shying away from those, we lean into them. Hearing an audience silent as they invest in a heartfelt moment, then uproariously laughing as the tension breaks, it’s truly amazing.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Art is an essential part of life. Whether performing or simply watching or listening, art in all its forms gives people a release. A release from their everyday life and a moment to experience something outside of themselves.
Without being able to record our podcast every other week throughout the thick of the pandemic, my life would have been a lot darker or at the very least, a lot more boring.
Contact Info:
- Website: beardedcompany.org
- Instagram: instagram.com/beardedcompls
- Facebook: facebook.com/beardedcompls
- Twitter: twitter.com/beardedcompls
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/TheBeardedCompany/
