The Court Jesters
[3][7] Original members of the company were John Hudson, Patrick Duffy, Geoff Dolan, KC Kelly, Greg Cooper, Ross Gumbley, Cal Wilson, Simon Peacock, Susan Fogarty, Matthew Gould, Kevin Smith, Craig Cooper, Carl Nixon, Andie Spargo, Paul Letham, and Michael Robinson.
New Zealand's team, comprising Simon Peacock, Cal Wilson, Susan Fogarty and Greg Cooper, won the competition.
[5] The late 90s saw the company push the boundaries of improvisational practice through script-based improv works such as I Spy, The X-Philes, Blood, and Doctor Pussy Finger Says No To Tomorrow.
[citation needed] The Complete History of New Zealand (Abridged) continues to be presented throughout the country, most recently performed in Hagley Park, Christchurch in 2012.
[9] The company also pioneered a school holiday theatre programme using tight casts of three to four actors and scripts that could effectively use the main stage sets for daytime performances.
They held open auditions and from the various actors, singers, entertainers, comedians, street performers, and improvisors who applied formed the new troupe of Court Jesters in December 2002, "rebooting" the company.
Effectively starting from scratch, the troupe had to rebuild a fan base and increase audiences for Scared Scriptless, as well as attract more corporate entertainment work and retain the goodwill of The Court Theatre management.
[5] In May 2006 the company received improvisation tutelage from Keith Johnstone to couple the rise in financial success with increased artistic standards.
As a part of the 2008 Forge season, the Jesters staged Pulp William (a long-form mash-up of the Shakespeare and Tarantino genres),[12] "Scriptless Uncut" (an Oscars-themed improv show) and a return season of A Very Merry Scriptless, this time as a partially-scripted/partially improvised retelling of Dickens' A Christmas Carol; in 2009 the show similarly tackled the nativity and the Magi before returning to more short-form in 2010.
[14] In the 2010 Forge season, the Jesters presented a long-form show called Off The Map, featuring interweaving narratives and characters in a fictional small New Zealand town.
Companies also hired the Court Jesters directly to perform for them, for example a law firm that was based at the PGC House, one of the two large office buildings that collapsed during the February 2011 earthquake.
The Court resumed staging productions in The Shed's foyer with safety measures in place in August 2020 and on 21 September 2020 announced that the main auditorium would be reopening.
Scared Scriptless is hosted by an MC, along with anywhere from 4 to 10 players, a muso (a musician who improvises the backing music) and at least one technician/stage manager (who operates the lights and sound).
Members often left to pursue other careers or move overseas; subsequently people from school teams, workshops or other towns were recruited into the company as "Associate" Jesters – improvisers who played Scared Scriptless semi-regularly but were not used for corporate work or permanently contracted.
[citation needed] When the company reformed in late 2002, many of the new troupe were garnered from the University of Canterbury Comedy Club, high school teams and other entertainment groups/organisations.
