Gut Instinct Brings Improv Comedy to The GhostLight Theatre in 2025

Gut Instinct, a local improvisational comedy group, is partnering with The GhostLight Theatre in Benton Harbor for performances in 2025.

With improv comedy, the Gut Instinct team takes suggestions from their audiences to create scenes right on the spot – with hilarious results. Every show is unique and full of gut-busting surprises!

“Improv is the lifeblood of theatre training; it teaches spontaneity, creativity, and the art of listening, all of which are essential for creating authentic performances, “ says GhostLight’s General Manager and Artistic Director Paul Mow,  “It is through improvisation that actors learn to be fully present, to embrace the unknown, and to trust in their instincts. We are happy to welcome Gut Instinct into our space and for them to call the GhostLight home.”

Gut Instinct will perform at The GhostLight Theatre on four Fridays in 2025 – April 25th, June 6th, September 6th, and December 5th. 

Each improv show lasts about 1 hour and 45 minutes, which includes a short break between two acts. Shows begin at 7:00 PM EST. Tickets are available for $15 through GhostLight Theatre's box office and website (www.GhostLightbh.com).

Gut Instinct consists of former members of TORP Improv – Amy McWhirter, Andy Sawyer, Joe Daniel, Joel Smiedendorf, Nita Nicholie, and Stephen Kadwell. The group hopes to add more players in the coming months. 

After TORP's founder Mike Nadolski retired at the end of 2024, the remaining players decided to keep improv alive in Southwest Michigan, where it has been a tradition since 2011.

Mike Nadolski shared this about Gut Instinct in his retirement announcement, “I'm very pleased that this group of talented good humans is sticking together and moving forward toward new and even more creative improv horizons. I look forward to enjoying future shows from Gut Instinct and encourage all who appreciate improv to check them out and have a good laugh or two or twenty.”

For more information about Gut Instinct, visit their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/GutInstinctImprovComedy.

Directed by Lindsay Gilmore Gaspari, this contemporary slice-of-life play (The Wolves) depicts a girls’ indoor soccer team and practice drills as they prepare for a succession of games. As they warm up and talk about life, the girls navigate the politics of their personal lives as well as the politics of the larger world, gossiping about things like war, menstrual products, genocide, sports, pop culture, and their relationships. Each team member struggles to negotiate her individuality while being a part of a group. They bond over a bag of orange slices and personal traumas. The team seems as if it may disband after the sudden death of one of the girls, but they manage to come together. In the end, the surviving team players prepare to play yet another game together – closer, stronger, wiser, and fiercer. 

“ I wanted to see a portrait of teenage girls as human beings -
as complicated, nuanced, very idiosyncratic people who weren’t
just girlfriends or sex objects or manic pixie dream girls but who
were athletes and daughters and students and scholars and
people who were trying actively to figure out who they were in
this changing world around them ” —Sarah DeLappe

Jonathan Larson's Pulitzer Prize winning rock musical retelling of the “La Bohème” story...relocated to AIDS-era East Village, New York in the 1990s. A penniless songwriter's love for a young woman grows even as illness begins to consume her. The poet Rodolfo is now punk rocker Roger. Tubercular Mimi is now an AIDS-infected dancer at an S&M nightclub. Painter Marcello is now aspiring filmmaker Mark Cohen, and so forth. The ending is transformed from the opera, but the theme of love striving to endure beyond all obstacles remains. Directed by GhostLight Associate Artist SPENCER DIEDRICK (Once, Lewiston/Clarkston), popular songs include “Seasons of Love,” “Without You,” “Out Tonight,” “One Song Glory,” “I'll Cover You” and “Santa Fe.”

• lyrics: Jonathan Larson

• book: Jonathan Larson

• music: Jonathan Larson

Directed by Lindsay Gilmore Gaspari, this contemporary slice-of-life play (The Wolves) depicts a girls’ indoor soccer team and practice drills as they prepare for a succession of games. As they warm up and talk about life, the girls navigate the politics of their personal lives as well as the politics of the larger world, gossiping about things like war, menstrual products, genocide, sports, pop culture, and their relationships. Each team member struggles to negotiate her individuality while being a part of a group. They bond over a bag of orange slices and personal traumas. The team seems as if it may disband after the sudden death of one of the girls, but they manage to come together. In the end, the surviving team players prepare to play yet another game together – closer, stronger, wiser, and fiercer. 

“ I wanted to see a portrait of teenage girls as human beings -
as complicated, nuanced, very idiosyncratic people who weren’t
just girlfriends or sex objects or manic pixie dream girls but who
were athletes and daughters and students and scholars and
people who were trying actively to figure out who they were in
this changing world around them ” —Sarah DeLappe

Before Mamma Mia!, members of the pop group ABBA teamed up with Tim Rice (Jesus Christ Superstar, The Lion King, Evita) to create a dynamic drama centered around the world chess championship; mirroring the 1980s Cold War tensions of USA vs. Soviet Russia. The dazzling and beautiful pop rock score became a worldwide smash, including the hit single “One Night in Bangkok.”  Directed by Artistic Director PAUL MOW, and starring DAN MAXON (Anatoly) and ABBY MURRAY VACHON (Florence), the musical Chess makes its move to SW Michigan for the first time, as the game’s long history continues to rise in popularity.

GhostLight Theatre does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religious affiliation or beliefs, sex, gender identity, gender presentation and expression, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, cultural identity, marital status, pregnancy and or parental status, family orientation, physical/body appearance, sexual orientation, mental, physical, and/or learning disability, military status, linguistic/language difference, HIV status, socio-economics, medical condition, past conviction and/or incarceration status* in any of its activities or operations. These activities include, but are not limited to, hiring and firing of staff, selection of volunteers, cast members and vendors, and provision of services. We are committed to providing an inclusive, welcoming, and safe environment for all members of our staff, volunteers, community partners, and all those in communities we serve. GhostLight Theatre is an equal-opportunity employer and seeks to recruit, hire, train, and promote at all levels the most qualified applicants. We will not discriminate and will take affirmative action measures to ensure against discrimination in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any staff or job applicant on the basis of race, color, religious affiliation or beliefs, sex, gender identity, gender presentation and expression, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, cultural identity, marital status, pregnancy and or parental status, family orientation, physical/body appearance, sexual orientation, mental, physical, and/or learning disability, military status, linguistic/language difference, HIV status, socio-economics, medical condition, past conviction and/or incarceration status. GhostLight Theatre will make employment decisions on the basis of individual qualifications as related to
the requirements of a particular job position.​

Please join us as we travel to Benton Harbor to share with their community the amazing work of August Wilson's Seven Guitars. 

The fifth play in August Wilson’s American Century Cycle, Seven Guitars is part elegy, part mystery, and all Blues. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, Wilson's freewheeling comedy takes an intimate look at seven friends and the events leading up to the untimely death of an up-and-coming blues musician. Who or what killed Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton? Set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1948, this tale of star-crossed stardom, told in flashback, follows Floyd's last days, as his determination for a better future slams against life's harsh realities. (Seven Guitars includes depictions and language of racism, sexuality, physical violence, sexism, and death. Appropriate for those in high-school and up.)

The GhostLight Theatre tradition continues for the 3rd year in a row!! Added Midnight Show on Halloween with extra surprises in store!!

Brad and Janet are a simple engaged couple whose lives get turned upside down by Frank 'n Furter and his household of strange Transylvanians.

Due to extreme sexual content, Absolutely NO CHILDREN UNDER 13 will be permitted*

How does one celebrate Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Month at the same time? In Larissa FastHorse’s biting satire, this is the question facing three “woke” white thespians tasked with devising an elementary school pageant about the first Thanksgiving while avoiding any culturally appropriative missteps. A roast of the politics of entertainment and well-meaning political correctness alike, The Thanksgiving Play puts the American origin story itself in the comedy-crosshairs.