Hearne: New Comedy City Improv Maestro ‘Out for Blood’

Things haven’t been the same since Clancy left…

Once upon a time, there was Comedy Sportz. No mas. Oh, it’s still around, just not in Kansas City. Local improv dude Clancy Hathaway was the man with the plan in those dark ages of 1987. An out of work actor, Hathaway rented space in the back of Torres Pizza in Westport then richoceted around town to location after location for a dozen or so years before having a falling out with the Mother Ship and changing the name to Comedy City.

That was then…

And while Hathaway’s Linkedin page still describes him as "da’Mayor at Comedy City," he’s now retired says new owner Clay Morgan.

Morgan – a comic since 1997 – now runs the show in the Westport Flea Market – and is leading a bolder, edgier new charge.

"You know, people go, they see the show and they leave, but we want to make it a total experience," he says. "We’re looking at bigger and louder performers and we’re going to bring back that real, hardcore sporting performance. Like these guys are out for blood. That’s what made the format so successful initially – that it was a competition."

A new sound system is in place along with a new Web site that allows people to buy tix online.

"That’s a first, and we’re getting involved in social media, Facebook and Twitter," Morgan says. "And the shows are really interactive now, every scene, every game is about somebody from the audience."

But don’t let the "sports" part of the proposition fool you.

"Most of us are theater geeks, so we can tell you what’s going on on Broadway, but we couldn’t tell you who the quarterback of the Chiefs is," Morgan says.

How wild is it?

"We had a kid who was probably 19 sitting in the front row and he was really mouthing off and I said, ‘Fine, what’s your deal?’ And he said, ‘I just got out of prison today on parole.’ And his whole group of 10 cheered for him. And he kept answering his phone during the show and saying stuff like, ‘Yeah, make sure two kilos go out.’

"So he kept doing deals during the show and we took what was going on and twisted it to make him look so bad and embarrass him so bad that the entire audience just errupted in applause at the end of the scene. We did a scene about him being in prison and saying all this stuff in bravado, but he was just being someone’s bitch. We basically showed that he was somebody’s girlfriend and he had to do whatever that person said. So we showed what really happened to him in prison and that shut him up."

The bottom line: Play at your own risk!