10-year weekend

After a decade of laughs in Fort Worth, the improv comics in Four Day Weekend have a TV pilot on the burner and could be set to catch fire.

Improv comedy troupe Four Day Weekend has come a long way in 10 years.

Well, three blocks, to be exact.

From their comparably inauspicious beginnings at the now-defunct Casa on the Square space at Main at Third, the self-described "cockroaches of comedy" started out by following weekend performances of the hit musical Forever Plaid, putting on their antic late-night shows for the comedy-curious (and quite a few drunks).

"If you told me 10 years ago that we'd be just three blocks west, I wouldn't have believed it," says David Ahearn, co-founder and emcee of the group.

It's 20 minutes until showtime on a Friday night and the boys are chilling backstage in their cluttered yet tastefully appointed greenroom. Half of them are sprawled across leather couches, adjusting headsets plugged into their matching PSP players, focusing intently on a group game of SOCOM. Occasional cries of "Nice one, man!" and "Stop shooting me, I'm trying to change weapons!" disrupt the silence.

"We thought we'd try our luck out West, and here we are," says co-founder David Wilk. "Look out, Montgomery Ward building!"

Although they might not have come that far in terms of distance, the troupe has made major headway in the last decade. They've moved to and transformed the old performance area above the former Caravan of Dreams into a beautiful theater space, launched their own four-level improvisation training center to scout new talent, taken on corporate gigs for organizations such as Frito-Lay, Canon, Pfizer and Office Depot and branched out into film and television projects.

The tech-savvy Weekenders do a weekly podcast at 6 p.m. every Friday, post many of their sketches on YouTube and even deliver a weekly "Ripped From the Headlines" segment on www.star-telegram.com.

It's now less than five minutes to showtime -- but where 10 years ago, there would have been frantic pre-show jitters, constant debate over the show's lineup followed by second-guessing sketches throughout the performance, now there's an almost indifferent calm.

"We would just beat each other up after every single scene," Wilk says of the show's infancy. He stands amid piles of colored wigs, rows of costumes and layers of prop detritus. "Now, it's like, 'OK, that's done. Let's do this new scene.'"

Maturity and experience have a lot to do with that -- after more than 2,300 shows, something's bound to sink in. But for guys about to walk out in front of 200 or so liquor-fueled strangers and essentially make up a show off the top of their heads based on suggestions yelled out or scribbled on Post-its, they don't seem the least bit nervous.

Maybe it's because they've got a lot to feel good about right now. In a recent trip west, the troupe signed on with upstart talent management film Agency for the Performing Arts (APA), and just a week later found themselves sitting across the desk from development folks from Paramount, Fox, FX, E!, MTV, Bravo and Showtime, with even more to come.

They were there to pitch Get Lost, a funny new TV pilot based on the real-life backstage goings-on at their show.

"We have the egos, everything of the superstars except the success," Wilk says of the series. "What does it take to survive on the bottom rung of show business outside of the loop?"

Turns out being outside of the loop might actually pay off. The troupe's irreverent, no-sacred-cows approach to pitch meetings left some execs scratching their heads but seemed to charm others. In Bravo, they invaded the break room to make their own coffee after a receptionist rolled her eyes at their request for decaf. After jokingly pitching a My Super Sweet 16-inspired reality series called My Bitchin' Bar Mitzvah to MTV, they attempted to get serious with the hapless interviewer.

"Now here's the real idea. OK, listen up ... music videos, right? You know music videos?" Frank Ford, the other founding member of the troupe, says of his pitch to the 20-something woman behind the desk.

"Oh, absolutely," she replies.

"You guys start playing them again."

Then Ford adds, "And she did not miss a beat, she looks back at us and she's like, 'Well, we can't do that.'."

All of the guys are optimistic that if they sell the show, they'll still be able to produce and shoot it here, which would translate to national exposure.

"I love Fort Worth, and I so appreciate ..... that people have supported us for 10 years, but you always have doubts," Wilk says. "You think, 'Oh, my God, what if for the last 10 years I would have just concentrated on a career in L.A.?' and then you go out there and leapfrog everyone we've ever known who's gone out there and all of a sudden, this burden's disappeared."

It's halfway through the show and Roberts walks by having just squeezed into a sports jersey about three sizes too small to portray one of the members of a girls basketball team. Adjusting his ratty blond wig, he says slyly, "This is ridiculous. I'm a grown man."

How many grown-ups do you know who get to have this much fun at work?

www.fourdayweekend.com

By the numbers:

6 weeks Original run of Four Day Weekend at Casa on the Square

10 years and 1 month Consecutive run performing in downtown Fort Worth

More than 2,300 Performances since debuting Feb. 28, 1997

More than 300,000 Scenes performed

More than 11,500 Made-up songs performed

300,000 Audience suggestions received in the last 10 years

Around 298,000 Times the guys say the audience suggested the word "monkey"

212 Seats in the Four Day Weekend Theater

6 Performers in the original as well as the current lineup

11 Total cast members in Four Day's history

8 Cast-member marriages since the show began

6 Cast-member kids born

9-10 Audience-member marriage proposals made during shows over the years

1 Lawsuit filed against the troupe

Meet the Weekenders

David Ahearn With his quick wit, painstakingly disheveled hair and knack for playful repartee with the audience, Ahearn is a natural as the show's master of ceremonies. But he wears a number of hats throughout the performance, signaling light cues to the tech director, helping dress the other players or running the video equipment used in some bits. His stand-up background includes stints at legendary L.A. clubs such as the Laugh Factory, the Improv and the Comedy Store. Ahearn is also an accomplished writer and director, scripting the group's regular Weekend Report segments online and directing shorts, features and two television pilots featuring the Four Day cast.

Frank Ford As a character-driven performer, Ford can always be depended on to make the most of an outlandish costume or silly wig, usually to imitate someone in the audience. His patented style of mock sincerity and faux-authoritarian seriousness usually earns him the biggest laughs, even as his eyes betray that he's giggling inside. Ford has found much success in film and television, having served as a national spokesman for Whataburger and appearing in spots for McDonald's and The Movie Channel. In addition to starring in several full-length comedy revues, he's also appeared in indie films such as Pale Blue Moon, Shtickmen, Hit and Posing Wacholtz. He next stars opposite Crispin Glover and Jason Lee in the upcoming Drop Dead Sexy.

Joshua Roberts The first new cast member to emerge from the Four Day improv school, Roberts is an unflappable supporting player, shining in two-man sketches such as the Fort Worth COPS parody and music-video segments. But the former Four Day understudy has come far from playing second bananas to being an indispensable member of the comedy team. He honed his skills in D-FW theater productions, and in addition to appearing in commercials for companies such as Dr Pepper, Radio Shack, Fuji and Lockheed Martin, he's also written his own musical (Confusion) and released an album of his music and singing called Paper Trail.

Ray Sharp The sex symbol of the group, baby-faced Sharp is the quiet type who, though relegated to a dark corner of the stage hidden safely behind his keyboard, plays an invaluable role scoring the various sketches with clever musical flair as well as occasional sound effects. A talented musician, Sharp has released two CDs of his music (Exaudio and Eros) and performs live every Thursday from 8 to 11 p.m. in the Four Day Weekend Theater's adjacent Encore Lounge.

Oliver Tull His infectious smile and willingness to get visibly tickled during various sketches make him kind of the Harvey Korman of the group, but Tull's talent for turning a rhyming phrase has also made him one of Four Day's best at improvisational singing, a task that still frightens even the most seasoned improv performers. Tull also came from stand-up comedy, and he's appeared in a number of local commercials, TV shows such as Walker, Texas Ranger and Two's a Crowd and the feature films Dr. T and the Women and The Life of David Gale. An avid comic-book fan, Tull co-hosts the radio show Fanboy Radio at6 p.m. Sundays on KTCU/88.7 FM, and is currently developing the show for Web television.

David Wilk The heart and brains behind Four Day, co-founder Wilk is the ultimate straight man, go-to guy and supporting player. Having studied from the masters at the Second City Conservatory in Chicago, Wilk is probably the most skilled and experienced of the performers, but he's always willing to lob the occasional softball to allow another player to get a big laugh. You've probably seen him in dozens of commercials, including a recent one in which he buys a pizza from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Wilk is the driving force behind much of Four Day's business extensions and is also a gifted teacher, passing down the rules of improv to a new generation of potential players.

Former Four Day folks

Three of the original six-member lineup (Wilk, Ahearn and Ford were the others) have gone on to new things. Troy Grant left the show to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles, while Chamblee Ferguson can still be seen in theatrical productions around the Metroplex. The group's original music director, David Holt, was later replaced by professional musician Paul Slavens, who now performs regularly in Deep Ellum and hosts his own radio show on KERA/90.1 FM. Another short-time member, Wayne Niemi, also packed up to find his fortune in Hollywood.