Minneapolis improv comedy kings bow down to 'Harold'

"Chia Pets!"

The voice rang out above dozens of others as the near-sellout crowd at Huge Improv Theater scrambled to suggest something nostalgic.

Then members of an improv comedy team stepped up to relate anecdotes and associations the phrase brought to mind — like how the shoulder-pad fashion trend of the 1980s made every woman look like a linebacker.

Ten minutes later, the team and the audience were in the thick of three off-kilter narratives, following a quintet of musically inclined fur trappers; a father intent on watching bizarre VHS tapes with his son; and a quest for the secret of Rob Lowe's eternal youth. By the end of a half-hour, all of those seemingly unrelated stories managed to dovetail into something resembling a satisfying conclusion.

Welcome to the Harold. Or at least, one interpretation of the Harold. It's all part of Huge's "Harold Turns 50" celebration of what's arguably the most important cornerstone of long-form improv.

So what exactly is a Harold? Basically, it's a set of guidelines that help an improv team develop a scene. "The simplest explanation is just three story lines, each visited three times," said Huge co-founder Butch Roy.

You can pick out the familiar beats of the Harold in just about every TV sitcom.

"A group of performers will take an audience suggestion and build on that idea in ways that are unpredictable even to the performers," said Molly Chase, director of House of Whimsy, one of three teams that are performing at Huge every Saturday through the end of October. "There will likely be moments of poignancy and humor, and the whole room — audience and improvisers — are in it together.

"It's immediate, it has never happened before, and will never happen again."

The first Harold was performed in 1967 by the Committee, a San Francisco-based comedy group known for experimenting with narrative structures that employed improv games and exercises.

When the group decided that it needed a name for its creation, one member reportedly cracked that "Harold" would be nice. The handle stuck, to the slight chagrin of generations of performers who have had to explain its origin.

Committee member Del Close dedicated much of his career to honing and teaching the Harold. In the 1994 book "Truth in Comedy," generally regarded as the improviser's bible, he and co-authors Charna Halpern and Kim "Howard" Johnson explain that "the Harold is like the space shuttle, incorporating all of the developments and discoveries that have gone before it into one new, superior design."

Close's efforts as an instructor and co-founder of Chicago's iO Theater became the foundation for much of American comedy as we know it.

No local venue feels that influence more acutely than Huge Theater. With "Harold Turns 50," Minnesota's most visible improv venue is paying homage to its roots and giving some of the Twin Cities' top improvisers a chance to get back to the basics.

"There are a lot of improv structures, but there's something magic about the Harold, the way you start with an opening and it brings out a truth," said Drew Kersten, director of the Kempt team.

Kempt assistant director John Gebretatose agreed that it's all about capturing those truths. "It's people playing with confidence … making comment on real-life things. Like women's shoulder pads in the '80s and how they had to look like football players just to get through life. For me, that's what makes it successful: a through-line or a narrative commenting on society."

One of the reasons improv remains a hard sell for some audiences is that it's the ultimate "had to be there" entertainment. It's difficult to explain how the shoulder pad observation might snowball into a scene about Jennifer Aniston devouring the life force of her young fans, but for those watching the performers feed off one another's energy and make connections, the evolution is electrifying.

Those hazy connections are very much by design, Kersten said. "If the opening is about Diet Coke, you don't want to see three scenes about Diet Coke. You want them spread out as far as possible, so when they start to come back together it brings a bit more of that magic."

The laughs in a Harold show seldom come from a standard setup/punchline delivery. In fact, one of the first rules laid out in "Truth in Comedy" is "Don't go for the jokes." Instead, the comedy in a long-form show comes largely from watching relatable situations spiral into unexpected directions.

"The least successful Harolds are when we let our 'I know where this needs to go' take over and steer things instead of discovering all the way through," Roy said. "Because if we know where it needs to go, so does the audience."

The form's flexibility is obvious watching the three teams of five performers in the "Harold Turns 50" showcase.

On opening night, the House of Whimsy team produced a trio of focused, slice-of-life vignettes about crumbling relationships, disillusioned carnival workers and spiteful chess players. While the scenes frequently veered into weirdness, they remained grounded in a way that drew laughs of recognition from the crowd.

The Speficicity team, on the other hand, dove deeper into surreality right off the bat with a scene about two buddies literally riding each other's good vibes like a surfboard. That story line soon intertwined with two bird-watchers who misplaced a baby, and a home brewer crafting a hugely popular beer that smelled of cat urine, all of it building into a crescendo of absurdity that had the audience roaring for very different reasons.

As much reverence as the local improv community has for the Harold, the form represents something different in the Twin Cities than it does in improv hotbeds such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, where making it onto a high-profile Harold team can be a major career steppingstone. Many performers move to those cities for that reason.

"In Minnesota it's a strong part of the tradition, but at Huge Theater, Harold is only one of the forms that gets done," Kersten said.

While Close did some work with Minnesota comedy godfather Dudley Riggs and his Brave New Workshop, Huge encourages experimentation and focuses more on building strong teams of performers, regardless of form.

"Team first, format second: That's what differentiates us from the coasts," Gebretatose said. "We're better anyway," he added with a laugh.

Ira Brooker is a St. Paul-based freelance writer and editor.

Under the terms of a historic federal agreement, Minneapolis police would no longer be allowed to initiate a foot pursuit simply because a person flees upon seeing an officer.

Other changes bar officers from working off duty if they’re on administrative leave or under investigation for misconduct, and from handcuffing a child younger than 14 years old.

The 170-page tentative agreement, filed in court late Monday afternoon, addresses a wide range of procedures, from providing mental health resources to those undergoing a behavioral crisis to building additional layers of supervision meant to root out excessive force and expose patterns of dangerous conduct.

That legal agreement still awaits signoff from a federal judge.

It is the result of more than six months of negotiations between city staff and the U.S. Department of Justice — and comes nearly 18 months after a report of initial findings determined that Minneapolis police engaged in a pattern of racist and abusive behavior that deprives people of their constitutional rights.

The consent decree reinforces many policies put in place in the aftermath of George Floyd’s police murder, including the selection and review of the department’s field-training program. Another emphasizes the duty to intervene when an officer sees a colleague of any rank breaking the rules. Failing to do so could result in the same level of discipline as the officer who committed the actual offense.

A court-enforceable agreement — one of the federal government’s most aggressive tools for reining in problem police departments — would resolve all claims brought by the DOJ.

It stipulates that Minneapolis and its police “do not concede” the allegations in the report or “that there is a pattern or practice of unlawful behavior.” However, the city acknowledges that the findings raised “issues of great importance” to the community and the parties “engaged in good faith negotiations to resolve this matter to avoid the time and expense of taxpayer-funded litigation.”

The version shared with the City Council and other top officials Sunday via a secured link barred them from downloading, forwarding or printing the agreement. Roughly seven hours after they entered a closed-door session, the council unanimously voted to approve it.

The agreement, as summarized below, includes the following provisions:

The agreement requires that MPD rewrite its use-of-force policies in the code of conduct to emphasize that its officers “promote the sanctity of life as the highest priority in their activities.”

Rank-and-file officers would have to use the lowest level of force needed to ensure their safety, make an arrest or prevent escape. They shall consider whether any non-compliance stems from a person’s age, size, physical condition, mental impairment, or language barrier.

Neck restraints and chokeholds are prohibited.

Any officer who carries a firearm must also carry at least one less-lethal weapon on which they have been trained — whether in uniform or plainclothes. Chemical irritants should not be used on a person in a vehicle unless an imminent danger exists.

Federal oversight would require more rigorous use-of-force reporting by officers, who are expected to document specific details on every interaction in which they display or fire a weapon or cause physical injury.

MPD must create a Use of Force Board, chaired by the chief or top deputy, to review higher-level incidents, discuss trends and adopt new policy. A new Force Investigations Team (FIT), made up of supervisors and trained civilians, will be tasked with responding to the scene of critical encounters and conducting a thorough investigation.

Any officer who discharges their service pistol in the line of duty is required to provide a statement to their supervisor “as soon as possible” and won’t be permitted to leave the scene until they do so, unless it’s to receive medical care.

The agreement bars officers from using the term “excited delirium” to describe an individual’s behavior, communicate a medical diagnosis or potential cause of death.

Excited delirium usually refers to a person caught up in a potentially deadly form of agitation, sometimes abetted by drug abuse, and displaying aggressive behavior, profuse sweating, public nudity, foaming at the mouth and superhuman strength. The term is often invoked by law enforcement after a person dies in custody — including in the killing of Floyd.

The consent decree notes that excited delirium “lacks sufficient scientific evidence to be recognized as a medical condition and can lead to racially biased uses of force.” Gov. Tim Walz signed a law last summer making Minnesota the third state to ban training licensed peace officers on the concept, which is widely rejected by doctors as pseudoscience.

Other directives involve how officers should deal with the public during routine street enforcement. In voluntary field interviews, officers should not falsely indicate that a person is detained and required to answer questions. If a resident asks whether they “are free to leave” or may decline to talk, the officer must confirm that.

Anyone questioned is entitled to the officer’s information or contact card.

The agreement also seeks to limit so-called “pretextual stops” — the use of minor traffic or equipment violations as a legal way for police to pull over drivers they wish to investigate.

When responding to large demonstrations of free speech, officers should prioritize de-escalation and make a “good faith attempt” to communicate with event organizers. They are not permitted to intentionally obscure their badges, nameplates or any personal identifiers — and must provide that information if asked by a protester.

To bolster public trust, MPD must “seek to minimize the appearance of a military operation and avoid the use of tactics and equipment that may provoke a crowd.” Officers in riot or SWAT gear shouldn’t be deployed unless deemed necessary to prevent substantial bodily harm or “widespread catastrophic damage to property.”

Any dispersal orders must identify viable exit points and the use of crowd control weapons, like chemical aerosols and rubber bullets, should be a last resort. The indiscriminate use of such tactics is prohibited.

Officers also cannot “intentionally impede or discourage” journalists from news gathering, including observing and recording protests or law enforcement actions in public places. Police may only force them to move to carry out essential activities.

If detained, reporters have a right to speak with a supervisor to challenge that action. Destruction of news gathering equipment is expressly forbidden; any photos or evidence collected by journalists in the field cannot be accessed without a court order.

Complaints on use of force during first amendment events will ultimately be reviewed by a supervisor to determine whether the officer’s actions constituted retaliation or violated department policy.

The settlement prescribes the processes of handling complaints against officers so they won’t stall for months, or years. Serious misconduct investigations will continue, even if an officer resigns or retires — a notable change, since an officer’s departure would typically result in the complaint’s dismissal.

Those under investigation for serious infractions are barred from serving as field training officers. MPD must develop a system that empowers its recruits to question deviations from department policy and raise concerns without fear of retribution.

To ensure consistent standards, sergeants and lieutenants will be assigned to work “substantially” the same shifts as the officers they supervise. MPD must also require patrol officers to be assigned to a single supervisor each year, with higher ranking officials overseeing no more than eight officers at a time.

Misconduct complaints can be referred for coaching, training or mediation (with a member of the public) rather than an investigation only if they fall into the lowest Category A. MPD has been accused of using “coaching” — akin to a verbal reprimand — to handle a variety of complaints that go beyond minor violations. Coaching is not considered discipline by MPD, and therefore not public. The city may develop a mediation program to handle minor complaints from the public to foster community trust.

The city attorney’s office will be required to create a “Brady email box” and alert the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota requesting that they notify the city via the email when a court makes findings about MPD officers’ truthfulness, credibility or constitutional violations. The city attorney must then alert Internal Affairs. When the police chief sustains any officer misconduct, that must also be reported to the Brady email.

A Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigation into MPD contended that local prosecutors weren’t turning over negative information about police officers that could be helpful to the defense, despite a constitutional requirement.

The city must also report the number of officers who have been the subject of three or more completed misconduct complaints or investigations; the number of criminal prosecutions of officers; and the number of officers who resigned while being investigated for misconduct. Final discipline decisions must be made available to the public “promptly” on the city’s website through a searchable database by precinct.

Staff writer Stephen Montemayor contributed to this report.