The Funatics: A Santa Cruz performance troupe where there's always room for improv-ment

Saskia moved to Santa Cruz in 1990 and firmly planted her former LA roots into Santa Cruz soil. You can take the girl out of LA, but can’t take LA out of the girl – after a brief mid-life crisis, Saskia started taking improv classes with Clifford Henderson and Dixie Cox in 2006. She has also taken workshops with David Razowsky, Asaf Ronen, Stephen Gilbane, and Jeff Kramer. As a member of the now-defunct Whooligans troupe in 2007, Saskia performed at the Improvathon in October 2007. She also wrote and performed a 10-minute monologue with Clifford and Dixie’s Spotlife group that same year.

A newbie to The Funatics in 2009, she will join them onstage at the Santa Cruz ImprovFest and will also be performing in The Sound of Music with Scotts Valley Performing Arts from September 25 – October 11.

Carol Skolnick has been involved in performance of one sort or another for many years; she was schooled in stand-up comedy in New York City with Fran Capo and Allan Chang, as well as in solo performance with Jake-ann Jones, and has performed celebrity impressions (most notably Mae West, Dr. Ruth, Barbra Streisand and Julie Andrews) at many a talent show/New Year’s Eve party/Passover seder. Somehow she managed to avoid improv until fellow Funatic Loren Rosen dragged her kicking and screaming to her first class with Fun Institute’s Clifford Henderson and Dixie Cox in 2006. Since then, Carol has been a regular at Cliffi and Dixie’s “Saturday Morning Live” and has studied with members of Um…Gee…Um, The Irish Mutts, Oui Be Negroes and True Fiction Magazine, as well as with Asaf Ronen, Steve Gilbane and other improv greats. She joined The Funatics in 2009 and is making her debut performance with the troupe at the 2009 Santa Cruz ImprovFest.

Carol has strutted her stuff (in lingerie, no less) in a Spotlife solo performance piece (“Thunderthighs:  The Musical”), and in 10-minute one-act plays at the Eight Tens @ 8 and Best of the Rest festivals. Carol is also a prolific author with but one play to her credit, “Hopelessly Devoted,” which was produced at the Love Creek Productions One-act Play Festival in New York City in the mid ’90s.

Sheryl’s old friends just shake their heads in amazement and mutter, “Watch out for those quiet ones.” Who would’ve thought mousy, motherly, prim, baby boomin’, tree huggin’ little Sheryl would ever do something as “out there” as improvisational theater? Thank goodness she waited until her kids were grown to start this nonsense so they wouldn’t be TOO traumatized.

By day, Sheryl is a special education teacher (also known as a “Crazed Saint”). But by night, she dons her super ego persona and becomes…”IMPROV GIRL…or Improv Woman…or Improv Old Lady”.

Just let her go. She really needs the mental health outlet.

One of the original Funatics, Glenda Dixon has been a student of acting and improvisational theater since the 1990s. She has also taught improv to teenagers at Scotts Valley Parks and Recreation and, since 2002, has been the improv instructor at UCSC retreats. Glenda began performing with the troupe Sponge Cake Babies from 2001-2002, which morphed into The Funatics in 2003.

Glenda’s directing credits include “Reunion” (2008) and “Birth Control” (2009) for Santa Cruz’s Best of the Rest one-act play festival.