A Conversation with Butterfly Defect
By: Julia Stier
Tags: Creativity, Improv, Interview, Performance, Theatre

A Conversation with Butterfly Defect

Meet Andrew Stier, co-founder and director of the improv troupe Butterfly Defect.

Butterfly Defect is a longform comedy improv troupe in Austin, TX with a unique format: they perform an improvised choose-your-own-adventure story, where the audience votes on the decisions the characters make, and the actors make up the (often zany) consequences of the decisions in real-time. The B. Iden Payne Awards Council, which has been recognizing excellence in Austin for 45 years, recently awarded Butterfly Defect the Ethel Hinkley Award for Outstanding New Improvisational Troupe.

Below, Stier shares a bit about how the troupe formed, what makes for a successful improv scene, and how you can improvise with Butterfly Defect!

How did Butterfly Defect get together?

Brandt Taylor, Nicholas Marino, and I had all been part of UT’s short-form improv troupe, Gigglepants. We originally started this group to have an outlet to continue playing around with the friends we had improvised with in college. We’re also all gamers, so the format was largely inspired by choice-based videogames like “Life Is Strange,” which the three of us had played through together when we were roommates.

We recruited fellow former troupe-mates Ricci Valice, Kelsey Matteson, and Brigid Ludwig, who ended up coming up with the name when I pitched the idea to her over beers at a neon house party (we were both wearing glow sticks at the time): Butterfly Defect.

I was taking improv classes at Hideout Theatre at the time, and my classmate Jennifer McMurtry announced that she was producing a show at the Institution Theatre. Right place, right time, she needed acts and we needed a stage — she took a chance on us and suddenly we had booked our first set of shows!

“Afterwards we popped champagne, ate chocolate cake, and celebrated what suddenly felt like a truly real improv troupe.”

I was part of Austin’s hip-hop dance crew EPEK at the time, and a huge group of them surprised me by coming out to support us at our first show. Along with friends, family, and former Gigglepants troupe-mates, they packed the house! I still get anxious giggles when I remember the nervous energy that was coursing through us backstage. But once the show started, with all those friends cheering us on and laughing at our jokes, it ended up feeling impossible to fail, and we had a really great, really FUN show. Afterwards we popped champagne, ate chocolate cake, and celebrated what suddenly felt like a truly real improv troupe. I attribute much of the success of that night to those people that came to support us, and I think it really gave us momentum to keep doing this thing.

After that show run, we started applying to be booked in shows at improv theatres around Austin. We’re lucky to live in a city that has so many. We have since had a lot of guest improvisers perform with us, and have added Nathan Berkowitz and Retha Cioppa as permanent members of the group.

What makes Butterfly Defect different from other improv groups?

We’re the only group I’ve seen do this choose-your-own-adventure format (I’ve since learned of past shows that were similar, but even those were not the exact same as ours). In general, longform narrative improv is a format where you make up an entire play from beginning to end based off of audience suggestions, like in Netflix’s Middleditch and Schwartz. Our twist, though, is that at points throughout the show, the characters will come up to audience and ask them to make a choice on the character’s behalf. We present two options, and the audience votes by applause.

The result is really fun. The audience feels constantly involved, and the choices affect the improv in unexpected ways. We end up elevating our own ideas because we present choice A, the obvious choice, and then we have to come up with a choice B, that usually ends up being whatever dumb idea we can come up with on the spot — which sometimes ends up being way sillier or more creative. The story can go in a lot of interesting directions. The audience is helping us write the story, and whether they realize it or not, they’re pretty good at it! Sometimes it feels like cheating when I don’t know the most interesting decision to make — I just have them make it for me! It ends being a really cool, collaborative experience with the audience.

“It ends being a really cool, collaborative experience with the audience.”

How has the group adapted to performing on the digital stage?

We’ve actually done a surprising amount of virtual improv, and found a surprising amount of joy with it. We’ve mostly just been practicing for fun (we don’t call it rehearsal since there are no lines to memorize) as a way to entertain ourselves and connect with each other during quarantine. But we have performed online a couple times through Hideout Theatre, who has set up a really great infrastructure for online performances streamed through Twitch.

It’s different, and we can’t pretend it’s not different. Personally, we started having the most fun when we let go of trying to make Zoom improv feel seamless and embraced it for what it was — a bunch of goofballs making up scenes with each other over a video call. Improv already requires so much imagination, so it’s not much of a stretch to imagine we’re on a stage together.

There are some fun upsides. Using physical props is usually discouraged on the improv stage, but they work a lot better on Zoom when you have random things lying just off screen — in our first online performance, Nathan used a colorful hacky sack held close to his camera to represent a time portal.

Another advantage is we can invite friends and family who live outside the city to watch our shows.

The coolest thing though, is we’ve been able to improvise with a lot of our friends who now live in different cities and states. During one practice, we had people from five different states, three different time zones, and we even had an old troupe-mate pop in from Australia!

“Personally, we started having the most fun when we let go of trying to make Zoom improv feel seamless and embraced it for what it was — a bunch of goofballs making up scenes with each other over a video call.”

What makes for a successful improvised scene?

Everyone has to be on the same page. The audience, your scene partner, everyone needs to know exactly what’s going on in the scene. That’s why they always say “Yes, and” is the most important rule of improv. It means saying “yes,” the reality you just established with your line of dialogue is true, and then saying “and,” and adding more information that builds on that reality.

The next level to that I think is “deep” yes and, where you don’t just accept the idea your scene partner presented, but you reinforce it, give it more details or even just repeat it. It lets the detail marinate in everyone’s mind so everyone remembers it, and it’s like telling your scene partner “Yes! I like your idea and I’m gonna take it and I’m gonna run with it! We’re on the same page here, let’s do this!”

An important caveat to this is no one can “yes and” any ideas if they stay in your head, so if you have thoughts about where you are or what your relationship to the character is, you cannot assume that other people have those same ideas so you need to make sure you voice them. Again, everyone has to be on the same page.

Can you tell us a bit about your latest award, and what it means to you guys?

It’s really an honor. The B. Iden Payne awards are widely recognized not just in the Austin improv community, but also the entire Austin theatre community as a whole. I attended the award ceremony last year, and I remember thinking how great it would be to receive an award.

We were up against some awesome improv troupes with some members that we really respect, so I had actually messaged the group beforehand telling them it was very unlikely we would win. We were very surprised when we won! We know some of our friends and family really like us, but this gives us a new type of encouragement.

The B. Iden Payne committee put on a very nice online awards announcement ceremony, complete with prerecorded acceptance speeches and an ASL interpreter. They also hand delivered a trophy I have proudly displayed on my dresser.

I’m glad they have a category specifically for new improv troupes, because in the beginning phases you’re still trying to secure a fan base, and no one really knows who you are. This award is a really gratifying recognition, and hopefully serves to get our name out to more people.

What’s next for Butterfly Defect?

Even with the vaccines rolling out, we are not sure when the theatres here will open again. In the meantime, we’ve been discussing the possibility of a socially-distanced live performance on an outdoor stage in a park, with audience members sitting six feet apart from each other. Classic Theatre in San Antonio did a socially-distanced show that was very safe, and I’ve been inspired since. Our troupe members are part of the same quarantine pod, which puts us in the unique position to be able to do something like this without endangering our cast. The other unique advantage is that we are based in Texas, where the warmer weather could permit this. No official plans on this yet, but you can stay tuned on our Instagram @ButterflyDefectImprov for updates.

Whatever happens, I’m hoping Butterfly Defect is able to continue putting on fun shows, giving performance opportunities to new guest improvisers, and to ultimately keep growing, alike in our comedic talent, fan base, and bond as a group.

Is there anything I should have asked, or anything you would like people to know?

We have improvisational guests all the time! If you’re interested in guesting with us, you can message us on Instagram or Facebook!