Improvisation group takes audience for fun, bumpy ride

By Carolyn Wardle, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Theater is just a game for The Usual Suspects. And I think it probably is a pretty fun game.
Because Finley Bolton, Rick Ginn and Jeff Granstrom seem to be having a great time.
And as a result, the audience does too.

The trio performs comedy improvisation, a series of skits where audience contribution is an essential ingredient. New Choice, Academy Awards, Entrances and Exits and Guess the Hidden Task are some of the games that fill the evening with laughter.

The whole experience is like watching a high wire act. After accepting an impossible conglomeration of ideas, can the actors possibly make sense of it? Can they engage the audience? And most difficult of all, can they make it funny?

As the audience waits in anticipation. Bolton, Ginn and Granstrom step onto the wire. Cautiously at first, testing the tension, the audience laughs, a few more steps, a slip here and there; the viewer holds his breath. And then the intrepid trio breaks into a run; jumping, skipping and all around careening to the other side. And we breath a sigh of relief. Because they did it.

Bolton, Ginn and Granstrom somehow tied it all together. And it was funny. And we laughed, and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.