Bucket List at Fallout Theater

When long­stand­ing Fall­out The­ater reg­u­lars Pro­nounced Zed were grant­ed their own show, they seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate some­thing unique. Stan­dard improv typ­i­cal­ly relies on one audi­ence sug­ges­tion for inspi­ra­tion, usu­al­ly one word, tak­en from a sam­pling of dif­fer­ent shout­ed ideas. Buck­et List is an improv show with a twist.

“We must use all the sug­ges­tions,” Zed mem­ber Luke Gaskey says. Every sec­ond Tues­day, he and fel­low Austin come­di­ans Clay­ton Chal­man, Max Fos­ter, and Zed-asso­ciate Gar­rett Buss per­form an hour of rapid-fire improv inspired by audi­ence-penned sug­ges­tions on note cards, and they have to get through every sin­gle one. The Buck­e­teers (as they’re called onstage) take turns play­ing each scene in pairs, and a rotat­ing mem­ber rings a bell off­stage when it feels right to end. Every writ­ten sce­nario, name, place, inside joke or meme is han­dled with light­ning wit. At the pace they’re going it’s com­mon for the per­form­ers to end a scene as quick­ly as it begins with a quick joke punc­tu­at­ed by a ding­ing bell. The group’s chem­istry is on full dis­play. ​“We all have known each oth­er for so long that we can pre­dict how the oth­ers might or might not inter­pret cer­tain sug­ges­tions,” Fos­ter says. ​“Because of this, when we have only a hand­ful of sec­onds to ded­i­cate to each sug­ges­tion, we’re able to real­ly shoot them off with­out much fric­tion, because we have sim­ply seen each oth­er on stage beside us count­less times for sev­er­al years now.”

The show is near­ing its two year anniver­sary in Feb­ru­ary, though the troupe has been work­shop­ping the con­cept for much longer. ​“We’ve been per­form­ing as this spe­cif­ic group for only a cou­ple years, but per­formed along­side each oth­er for many more years,” Fos­ter says. ​“Buck­et List was born out of an improv form we cre­at­ed orig­i­nal­ly called ​‘Buz­z­saw’ where we rapid­ly com­plet­ed a crazy large amount of sug­ges­tions in 15 min­utes”. Pro­nounced Zed hit their stride as a ver­i­ta­ble house act for Fallout’s vari­ety com­e­dy hour Explo­rapho­ria. The note-card-marathon got its start there, and was honed into a full length show. ​“Explo­rapho­ria is what allowed us to exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent weird for­mats and even­tu­al­ly devel­op ideas that would inspire Buck­et List,” Gaskey says.

The Buck­e­teers pro­vide an expe­ri­ence that guar­an­tees audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion. It cer­tain­ly isn’t lost on the troupe that giv­ing the audi­ence free rein to write what­ev­er they want has unlim­it­ed poten­tial, and risks. ​“Excite­ment is cer­tain­ly a word one could use to describe it,” Fos­ter says. ​“Inevitably, when­ev­er you ask an audi­ence mem­ber to join in on the fun, there’s always going to be one in every one hun­dred sug­ges­tions that cross­es the line.” There are pro­to­cols in place to ensure that these moments are han­dled appro­pri­ate­ly and with­out sac­ri­fic­ing the fun; Zed does this well. Mean­while the unin­tel­li­gi­ble is com­e­dy fod­der. ​“If a sug­ges­tion is ever incom­pre­hen­si­ble we will typ­i­cal­ly lean into that and make fun of the con­fu­sion in the scene,” Gaskey says. ​“I think it reminds the audi­ence we’re a scruffy, rag­tag group that’s hope­ful­ly relat­able.” Buck­et List is even an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the spec­ta­tor to lend their own comedic voice. ​“The fun­ni­est sug­ges­tion I ever received was ​‘Tam­my is a slut’, after we real­ized Tam­my was some­one’s friend in the audi­ence,” Gaskey says. ​“In our very first show we got the sug­ges­tion ​‘Cave­man Music’. I enjoy sug­ges­tions that are odd­ly spe­cif­ic. Those force us to get espe­cial­ly creative.”

No mat­ter whether a Buck­et List attendee writes a joke about a friend, or ​‘Cave­man Music’, or some­thing inscrutable, the Buck­e­teers put on an exhil­a­rat­ing and hilar­i­ous show that’s worth see­ing. All that Luke Gaskey asks is this: ​“Stop writ­ing sug­ges­tions ask­ing for per­son­al advice. It will nev­er be good advice.”