During high school drama class discussions, Jennifer Wagner was terrified of being singled out.
Put her on stage, though, and Wagner completely forgot her timidity.
"I was a super shy kid, I was definitely not the class clown," said Wagner. "I remember being mostly terrified in high school drama classes but also loving the thrill of performing in front of the class.
"I have a penchant for accents, so I remember doing some crazy skit in high school where I was an Italian chef and I was very bombastic ... People laughed. It was great."
After high school, the Richmondite decided to pursue acting. Her agent suggested she take improv classes to help hone her skills.
"As I took more classes and progressively became hooked, I started to realize that improv was so much more than just a means to some other end."
She eventually gave up pursuing an acting career.
That was 15 years ago.
The part-time English teacher at Vancouver's Prince of Wales Secondary has never looked back.
She is now performing in Vancouver TheatreSports League's newest show, Pants on Fire - The Liar's Show.
"Improv is a skill. Like any art form, it takes time to become proficient at it," said the 42-year-old Wagner. "Even then, it is one of those strange things that you never really feel complete mastery over.
Pants on Fire - The Liar's Show is an improvised comedy act featuring special guests - local celebrities and/or prominent people in the community. They join the improvisers on stage for an evening.
"When the show starts, the guest is interviewed by the host and then asked to pull a card from the hat. This card details either a true story/fact that the guest shared with the host prior to the show, or the host tells a lie."
That's when the fun begins. Wagner and her fellow improvisers must then question the guest in order to figure out whether the story is true or a lie, and then act out scenes inspired by the storyteller.
"At the end of the show a winner is declared, either the improvisers or a guest."
Wagner said all improvisers, at one time or another, will bomb. Early on in her career, a drunken heckler mortified Wagner.
"I remember playing a sheep in a scene and this drunk dude in the audience yelled, 'You're baaaaad_' Yeah, that was pretty crushing actually."
Another time, Wagner and other troupe members were on a school tour in Northern B.C. The comedians invited students to join them on stage. In one scene, a young boy in Grade 5 volunteered to provide the sound effects.
"He did a great job and everything went off very well," she said. "At the end of the show, the principal of the school informed us that the young boy we chose to be in our scene had Tourette's Syndrome.
"She proceeded to tell us how happy she was that he didn't say f**k in the scene and he had a real problem saying f**k and on and on she went. She must have dropped the f-bomb at least 10 times in the course of our two-minute conversation."
However, that's not the toughest part of improv - the biggest challenge is fear.
"You have to work with fear and use it to your advantage. Fear is just energy and as an improviser you have to learn to channel it," said Wagner.
Wagner is a self-described risk taker. "Improv forces you to be fully in the moment. You aren't thinking about the past or the future when you are improvising. It's just right now and that's an awesome rush."
However, Wagner added an improviser is only as good as their colleagues on stage. "The best improvisers have learned that there is no such thing as a mistake. You just have to stay open and listen and pay attention to what is being created in front of you and go with it."
In the meantime, Wagner promised audiences will enjoy Pants on Fire - The Liar's Show. "They can expect some really great, funny, snappy scenes inspired by true (or false) stories," she said. "It's also a neat opportunity for all us to get a glimpse inside the personal lives of some local celebrities."
VTSL presents its fall production of Pants on Fire - The Liar's Show, running until Nov. 17. For more information, times or to purchase tickets, visit www.vtsl.com.
