Life's A Stage

The first rule of improvisation or, more specifically, improv comedy is to be as honest and truthful as possible. Truth is often funnier than fiction.

Rick Treur knows the rule all too well. Treur uses his day job as community service director for U.S. Representative Vernon Ehlers’ Grand Rapids office as inspiration for his night gig – a stand up comic with River City Improv troupe.

But sometimes his two very different worlds collide. In 2004, for example, Treur played his boss, a self proclaimed science geek, in an onstage spoof of the popular game show Jeopardy. It was Ehler’s 70^th birthday, and his daughter thought the skit would give the fun-loving congressman a laugh. So Treur dressed the part, complete with pocket protector and a wild scientists’ wig, and parodied the personality of one of Grand Rapids’ senior statesmen.

The character went over so well with the audience that Treur has played Ehlers on several subsequent occasions.

“I wasn’t sure (about playing him) since it was my boss and I had just applied for a promotion,” Treur recalls. “But Vern came up to me after the show while I was talking to someone and said, ‘Oh, so I see you’ve met my former employee.

“I did end up getting that promotion,” Treur says, “so things worked out in the end.”

Accidental Politician, Committed Performer
Indeed they did. Treur has worked for Ehlers for 13 years now. He handles the congressman’s schedule for events outside of Washington D.C., attends local events with him or for him when he is not in town, and also runs Ehlers re-elections campaigns in metro Grand Rapids.

Treur began his political career in high school, as an assignment for civics class, when he volunteered to pass out O' Henry candy bars at a parade for former Representative Paul Henry. In college, Treur served an internship in Henry’s district office and was eventually offered a position there when Jerry Kooiman, now a former state representative, left to work for another popular West Michigan politician. When Congressman Henry passed away, Treur applied for a position in Vern Ehlers office.

“I never planned on entering politics; it just sort of happened,” Treur says. “I am an English major. I just ended up here.”

Now, thirteen years later, he uses that political experience, as well as what he sees in daily life around Grand Rapids, to help create the characters he portrays on the stage.

Treur took an interest in improvisational theatre his freshmen year at Calvin College after seeing an undergraduate troupe of actors perform. He made the team his sophomore year and led the group his junior and senior year. He left the improv scene for a bit following college but eventually co-founded River City Improv with Jeanne Leep, a fellow former Calvin teammate.

“When I returned from getting my master's and he was done with school, we both kind of missed it, so we thought, ‘why not do it?” Leep says.

The group’s first few performances were basically for a few friends and family. “We had to beg people to come,” Leep remembers.

But over the years River City Improv has grown into one of the more popular – and truly funny – running performances in West Michigan. They’re regularly featured on the campus of Calvin College. The comedy team focuses on “short-form improv,” which is similar to the wild and witty television show “Whose Line is it Anyway,” and requires suggestions from the audience for the games and scenes that play out.

Leep says it's fun to work with Treur because he cares about the community and is a good leader for the organization.

“Rick is inherently smart,” Leep notes. “He brings the skills for observing and remembering and he knows the right time to jump in.”

Skills to Pay the Bills
Treur’s reality – his day job, that is – is somewhat different from that of his teammates and he sometimes draws on the “wacky world of government” to develop and hone characters, such as when he once played presidential candidate Bob Dole.

“Rick was able to play him with depth and satirize the political scene,” Leep says. “He also knows innately never to go too far. He still has to go to work the next day.”

Marty Wondergem, a River City Improv member since 1995, says that while Treur pulls from his political background for characters, he also does local humor and characters.

“We all do local humor—it’s what’s funny,” Wondergem says. “We get a lot of locals at the show. Rick is good at his job and has current events that he can use.”

On stage, Treur plays various reoccurring characters such as Roger, a retired circus clown from East Grand Rapids, and Chip, a professional church potluck coordinator. Outside of his day job, inspiration for his characters typically comes from rummaging through the prop box prior to the show or observing citizens around town while he runs.

“I mainly do things that I can relate to,” Treur says. “I try to find something that works. Some work and some do not.”

While he relies on his political background to help guide his performances, working for a highly respected politician like Vern Ehlers and doing improv are two very different things, Treur says. But both jobs benefit from similar skills, including the ability to think on your feet, manage different communication styles, react positively to spontaneous events around you, and build successful teams.

Rick Treur is a common thread in two very different yet highly successful teams these days. Vern Ehlers and his staff have been in office since 1993. And River City Improv is going strong after 14 years when similar groups struggle to survive one.

“Many groups fall apart because they do not have a good leader,” says Jeanne Leep. “Many leaders get sucked into the administrative aspect of it, but Rick still gets a joy out of performing. That’s the whole joy for him.”

“He’s good at sharing the stage and making sure others look good on stage – that’s how he lives his life.”