Ask Fawad Siddiqui about improvisational comedy – the art form the world knows as improv – and he’ll tell you how inclusive it is. He might tell you about his career in acting, and how it all started with improv. He’ll tell you about how addictive it is, and how that class you take once a week might turn into your new habit.
But ask him why you should come out for the first SOFLO LOCO Improv and Comedy festival at the Main Street Players theater, and he’s also got a simpler answer.
“It should be fun,” he said.
The kind of fun the South Florida improv scene hasn’t’ got together for in a bit.
“We haven’t had anything with this type of a local focus in a while,” he said. “It’s been a couple years since the Miami Improv Festival.”
It’s been a minute for the region, but for Miami Lakes, an improv event this big is something completely new.
“This is the first time we’re doing it here at Main Street,” Siddiqui said. “We figured we’d make it a real celebration of the local improv scene and invite all the teams we could. I didn’t realize we’d get such a big response. Pretty much everybody we reached out to responded so quickly. It should be a really fun time.”
It’s a big moment for Siddiqui, who has spent the last several years building back an improv scene on Main Street with his group, Short Round. Years ago another improv group, Laughing Gas Comedy Improv Theatre, made its home on Main Street and helped actors and the comedy-curious get into improv. Siddiqui was one of those people.
Founder Gerald Owens, who died in 2023, was a legend of the South Florida theater scene. Many members of the South Florida acting and improv community owe their start to Owens, including Siddiqui.
A Hialeah native and Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School graduate, Siddiqui had never studied acting when he first happened upon an improv show. A journalism student at the University of Miami, he saw himself more as a writer. But once he saw a Laughing Gas show, he was hooked.
“It immediately spoke to me,” he said. “It was so live, so local, so current.” He’d seen Whose Line Is It Anyway, the American spinoff of a British TV show that was many Americans’ introduction to improv, but he hadn’t known anything else about it. He started taking Thursday-night classes, just for stress release. He was hooked pretty much immediately.
“When you get into improv, you get the bug,” he said. “It bites you. You need more of it.”
He didn’t realize when he first walked in, but he was about to get a crash course from Owens in all forms of acting – and a new career.
“He would teach you how to be an actor in general as well,” Siddiqui said.
He’d also talk about the business, about agents and headshots, about how to find work. A couple years later, Siddiqui was going on auditions and getting hired.
“I’m definitely one of the blessed actors from South Florida that has got to be active,” he said. “It all came from improv.
“I went from a non-actor to an actor booking national TV work within two years because Jerry would just say how it works. It ended up just being this perfect training ground.”
Siddiqui has continued to work in television in film.
Part of the motivation for this festival and helping the local improv scene is a recognition of how he got here.
“It’s given me gifts,” he says of improv, “and I’ve tried to give back.”
He also wants to bring new fans and participants into a form of acting that he considers not just fun, but also important.
“Improv theater is the most inclusive form of acting,” he says. “It welcomes everybody in, and we want everybody to come.”
“It’s a very positive art form. On top of that, it’s also a wonderful tool for actor training.”
Most working actors hear the word “no” a bit. One of the secrets to improv is that you always say “yes” – or more specifically, Siddiqui explains, “yes and.” If you’re scene partner says they’re a manatee, you don’t say “No you’re not.” You say “yes, and I’ve never seen a manatee riding the Brightline before.”
“You really have to train yourself just to say ‘yes’ and see where it goes,” Siddiqui said.
Improv can be an antidote to all the “no” of the acting world.
“Acting is much better as a team sport,” Siddiqui said. “It is a lonely grind. There is a lot of heartbreak; it doesn’t care about you.”
The past few years have presented other problems for the South Florida improv community. As it did with arts communities everywhere, the pandemic hit it hard. Then Owens died.
But lots of great groups have still been doing their thing all around South Florida, and Siddiqui’s been building things back in Miami Lakes with Short Round. He sees this new era as something of a reset.
“That’s what this festival is a chance to do,” he said.
SOFLO LOCO Improv Comedy Festival runs from Thursday, September 24 through Sunday, September 27 at Main Street Theatre. It will include improv classes as well as shows by various improv groups from throughout South Florida. For event times, tickets and more information, visit eventbrite.com/e/soflo-loco-improv-comedy-festival-kick-off-community-jam-tickets-1999430048097