History[]
Jump On Three was founded in March of 2010 from students training at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. They were originally coached by Megan Neuringer who helped craft their early form. Eventually Don Fanelli took over in August of 2010 and helped push the team towards an organic approach to their original form. Since August 2010 Jump on Three has hosted a monthly show at Under St. Mark's Theater on the first Friday of every month at 10:30PM. For the entirety of their current formation Jump on Three has been introduced using the song "General Patton" by Big Boi.
Cast[]
J.D. Amato, Matt Dennie, Maelle Doliveux, Scott Holmes, Phillip Jackson, Matt Starr, and Samantha Warnick
Monthly Show[]
After performing in a variety of indie shows, Jump On Three began hosting a monthly show at Under St. Mark's Theatre (in the time slot once occupied by indie team Rogue Elephant) in August of 2010. Their shows were the first Friday of the month at 10:30 p.m and ran until August 2011.
Guest teams that performed at Jump on Three's monthly show included:
- Weekend Dad
- Sandino
- Tim Martin & Dan Klein
- Kraken
- Doppelganger
- Arm Candy
- Moonfight
- Fuck that Shit
- Kate Riley, Emily Axford, Tim Martin, and Alden Ford
- Sabonis
- Ravinia
- The Shucks
- Amos and Andrew
- These Guys Look Like They Read
- Weenie
- Butt Surgery
- Three Angry Men
- Greek Tragedy
- New England
- Get Paid
- 8GH
- Butterface
- Chris Gethard, Zach Woods, Bobby Moynihan, aka: 3/5 Dudes
13th Street Repertory Theatre Show[]
In the Summer of 2011 Jump on Three announced that they would be ending their run of monthly shows at Under St. Marks. A new show was alluded to but not officially announced at the final Under St. Marks show. Then in September the team announced they would be creating an entirely new show with a new format at the 13th Street Repertory Theatre in New York. The new format used the concept of dictionary definitions to present two twenty to thirty minute organic halves at the new theater. The show had no host and lasted one hour.
Notable Shows and Non-Traditional Comedy[]
Part of the Jump on Three mission includes trying to create and be involved in non-traditional projects that attempt to push the boundaries of improv and comedy.
The Night of Zero Laughs[]
Jump on Three was a part of The Chris Gethard Show's second "Night of Zero Laughs." The show worked whereby audience member were ejected from the show if they laughed and thus various comedians were tasked with the mission of making the audience laugh and subsequently getting them kicked out of the UCB Theater.
Jump on Three took on the role of the harbingers of chaos and came out to flashing lights and a bizarre audio landscape trying to single out individual audience members with organic chaos. They managed to get one person out, Ryan Williams, who vehemently denies laughing (though onlookers claim that due to the flashing lights and focused distraction, many laughing audience members were not spotted by the guards).
The Secret Show[]
For their one year anniversary show Jump on Three hosted a Secret Show in New York. Audience members received directions to a meeting point via email along with instructions for what to do when they arrived. The instructions read as follows:
FOLLOW THE DRUNKEN MAN WITH THE MANDOLIN - HE WILL TAKE YOU EXACTLY WHERE YOU NEED TO GO.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT TRUST THE TOURIST.
THIS IS THE ONLY WAY YOU WILL GET TO THE SHOW.
On the night of the show a drunken man with a mandolin wearing all camoflouge appeared on the street and led the audience through the streets of downtown New York. Along the way two tourists attempted to persuade the audience to go a different route. No audience members betrayed the instructions. Eventually the man with the mandolin led everyone to an underground boxing gym where the performers were waiting.
The show was performed inside a boxing ring and every team's set had a combat theme. Boybutter performed first and after their set Sandino rushed the ring and challenged them to a push-up competition with the prize being Aaron Jackson (since Aaron was a member of both teams). Sandino then performed a monoscene using the boxing gym as their location. Throughout the night Don Fanelli acted as an in-ring ref for every team. Every set ended with a fight and Jump on Three finished their set with an audience participation tag out slap fight after Phil knocked out JD with a slap to the face after JD chose to continually punch his team members.
Shuckfest (April Fools Show)[]
On April 1st, 2011 (April Fools Day) Jump on Three was scheduled to perform their monthly show at Under St. Marks. The show was promoted and advertised as a normal show with the guests listed as Three Angry Men, The Shucks, and Primal Bias. When audiences arrived to the show, instead of being greeted by members of Jump on Three, audience members were greeted by members of indie team The Shucks. Posters littering the walls referred to the night as the non-existant "Shuckfest" with guest teams listed as Jump on Three, Three Angry Men, and Primal Bias.
The entire show was hosted by The Shucks in an alternate universe where the Shucks have a monthly show instead of Jump on Three. Part of this universe included the Shucks taking on a false persona of being overly confident and self-obsessed. Among the expressions of this self-obsession were hundreds of posters plastered around the theater, leaflets on every seat labeled as "Shuck-bucks" claiming to be redeemable at any improv show, a playlist for the night made up of Shucks-recorded songs with altered, Shuck-centric, choruses, and the Shucks performing last and introducing themselves, leaving the stage, and then coming back out. Throughout the night they referred to Jump on Three as a practice group and were never able to correctly say their name.
A rumor was started that many audience members refused to attend the April 1st show because the inclusion of Primal Bias on the promotional materials made potential audience members assume that the show was fake. However, Primal Bias (missing two members) did reunite for the show and performed a set together.
UCB Cage Match 2011[]
On May 12, 2011 Jump on Three competed in its first ever UCB Cage Match. In their first outing they defeated UCB Harold Team CAPTCHA thus ending CAPTCHA's three week run of musical improv sets. On May 19, 2011 Jump on Three competed against UCB Weekend Team The Curfew in The Curfew's first ever Cage Match appearance. Jump on Three was defeated by The Curfew.
During their two week UCB Cage Match run Jump on Three coordinated apparel and all wore black shirts with jeans, they entered and exited their set from the front of the UCB stage, and would use their Cage Match approved 30 second timeout to make eye contact and check in with each other after receiving the suggestion.
The Secret Show II[]
At the beginning of 2012 Jump on Three quietly announced a second Secret Show with a limit on possible audience numbers. After emailing to reserve a space at the show a crowd of 25 audience members were invited to meet at a street corner in Manhattan wearing business attire. They were led to a conference room in a mid-town business center where Jump on Three performed as the owners and employees of a large business going through tough times. The audience members were treated as interns and were directed to split into groups and follow various members of Jump on Three as they came and went through the different sections of the business center with the majority of the performance happening in the conference room.
External Links[]
- Jumping Improv Under St. Marks article about Jump on Three in The Local East Village
- Jump on Three on newyork.improvteams