Leo Costello
Amalgam Improv's I’m Prov, You’re Prov show.
Storytelling and improv with a guest: I’m Prov, You’re Prov.
When Amalgam Improv, Madison’s newest improvisational comedy company, launched in the summer of 2024, it was almost “accidental,” says founder Ben Rush. But audiences asked for more, prompting Rush to go all in on Amalgam.
Now audiences are growing, the number of improv formats and types of shows is increasing, and the group’s been nominated for “Best Comedy Group” for 2026 in the Best Of Madison contest from Madison Magazine.
Rush says he has “always had comedy in his bones,” but didn’t start improv in earnest until he was a graduate student at UW-Madison. He’d done stand-up once, but was held back by “perfectionism,” which he calls the “kiss of death” for comedians.
But that performance experience spurred Rush to take the Improvisational Theatre for Scientists class at UW-Madison six years ago as part of his doctoral studies in nutritional sciences. That class uses the techniques of improv to help scientists convey their work to the public through voice and other elements from theater. He kept up his improv studies, and practices what he learned in his job as a data scientist in the radiology department at UW’s School of Medicine and Public Health.
Rush was initially scared to take the improv class but as soon as he started “it felt very natural,” he says, “and I had so much fun doing it.”
Rush wound up co-teaching that class during his post-doctoral studies in 2023, and continues to teach through Amalgam Improv’s courses. He also participated in Madison’s Atlas Improv and Monkey Business Institute, as well as Chicago’s world-famous improv theaters iO Chicago and The Second City.
It was an eye-opening experience. “Chicago has a lot of theaters, but they all work collectively,” Rush says. “Students can take classes at any theater, instructors can teach at any theater, teams can play at multiple theaters,” Rush says.
Amalgam aims to create that sense of collaboration in Madison. Crossover jams with Atlas Improv are open to all indie teams in the area. Amalgam itself puts on numerous shows of differing improv types. The flagship Half Baked show gives four indie teams an opportunity to put on a 15-20 minute set of any format. Sci-prov and Story-prov shows feature a local scientist or storyteller, respectively, followed by improv inspired by the presentation. There are also premise-based shows including Pop Culture Improv, which picks one subject like Star Trek or Lord of the Rings to build sets around.
“I don't think there's one right way to do improv,” Rush says, stressing that a healthy performance ecosystem has different theaters with different specialties that “can be very collaborative, that we can specialize…and learn from one another.”
Rush quotes the old adage (frequently attributed to Plato), that “you can find out more about a person in one hour of play than a year in conversation.” Rush laments that for adults, there are few opportunities to play — but notes that comedy and improv provide ample opportunities for it.
“If you tell a joke and people laugh,” says Rush, “there's a lot of commonalities immediately, because laughing is usually because of spontaneity and surprise. It's a bit more of a genuine reaction than someone nodding and saying, ‘I think so too.’”
Amalgam Improv will celebrate its second anniversary at the Bartell Theatre on July 11 with two shows, featuring an Improv Power Hour followed by the I’m Prov, You’re Prov show, a blend of storytelling from a special guest and improv from a gaggle of Amalgamites.
Ultimately, Rush wants people to simply try improv at any of the spots in town. “I think people see improv, and they see how much fun people can have, and then they get really intimidated,” he says. “But I’d say to those people, if that’s resonating with you in any way, just go try.
“You’re doing improv all the time,” he adds, because “nothing in life is scripted, but at least this way, you can get a lot more laughs from it, too.”
