Enter Laughing

As construction workers recently put the finishing touches on the new Improv in the Irvine Spectrum Center, owner Robert Hartman happily described the comedy club’s key features.

There’s tiered booth and table seating, all with unobstructed sight lines to the stage in the half-moon-shaped showroom.

There’s a high-quality sound system (it cost $60,000, compared with $5,000 in the typical comedy club) and lighting system (about $20,000, compared with $4,000).

And there are two mounted video cameras that will provide live glimpses of onstage comics to three video monitors outside the club.

There’s only one important missing ingredient: laughter.

That will come on opening night Tuesday when Craig Shoemaker, the American Comedy Awards’ 1997 Comedian of the Year, becomes the first comic to headline at the relocated club.

The move to the highly visible Irvine Spectrum Center breathes new life into the Orange County comedy institution, which opened in the University Center across from UC Irvine in 1986.

A lot of thought went into the new showroom’s design, said Hartman, who borrowed ideas from Second City in Toronto and other comedy clubs.

Although the new Improv is the same size as the old one--about 4,000 square feet--it boasts 325 seats compared with 270.

Hartman said they needed a large-enough room to lure big-name comics, but not so big that someone in the last row couldn’t see a comic’s facial expressions. With the new showroom design, the farthest seat is only 60 feet from the stage, compared with 90 feet at the old location.

“The key to comedy is you want to keep people close together, to have that intimacy level,” Hartman said above the din of an electric sander. “Laughter is contagious.”

Comedy fans can enter the Improv via a walkway on the San Diego Freeway side of the Irvine Spectrum Center’s Phase Two shopping area, which is modeled after the centuries-old Alhambra in Granada, Spain.

Hartman said it wasn’t easy sticking to the center’s architectural theme for the club’s exterior. As he noted jokingly, there weren’t many comedy clubs back then. But the exterior design incorporates a Moorish lantern into the club’s movie theater-style marquee, along with colorful mosaic tiles on the wall.

There’s also a ‘20s-style box office in front and, on the front and side walls, four 8-by-8-foot display cases will feature giant pictures of upcoming headliners.

When not giving live glimpses of the comics onstage, the video monitors above the three front doors will show comedy clips as well as special comedy bits aimed at patrons by Irvine Improv regulars Jeff Dunham, Todd Glass and Bobby Slayton.

And there are more high-tech developments in the works.

In February, the Irvine Improv will be linked to the Internet, enabling comedy fans to catch brief moments of the action onstage. (The other 11 Improvs around the country will be wired within six months.) Also beginning in February, customers will be able to buy via the Internet tickets with assigned seating to the Irvine club.

Among the other changes: On Saturday nights, the club will offer three shows instead of two--at 7, 9 and 11 p.m. Mondays will be devoted to hypnotist Suzy Hainer.

And there will be another first at the club: Jeff Jena, a comedy headliner who lives in Santa Ana, will serve as permanent house emcee and host.

Jena, who’s been working on the road 20 years, said the steady gig is not only a great opportunity to spend more time with his year-old son, but it will also enable him to focus more on his acting career.

As club host, Jena said, “I’ll be around as people come in and I’ll say hello to them. Hopefully, I’ll learn to recognize some of the regular customers. I’ll be trying to give it that feeling you see in films. Like Humphrey Bogart in ‘Casablanca’--he knew everybody there.”

Not that Jena’s going to be wearing a white dinner jacket a la Bogie.

“I’m more of a black leather jacket kind of guy,” he said.

Jena’s looking forward to working at the new Improv.

“I think it’s going to very quickly be known as the premiere club in the country,” he said. “A lot of clubs, the space isn’t designed, ground up, to be a comedy club by people who know what to do.”

Despite all the new elements, one Improv tradition remains: the trademark red brick wall at the rear of the stage--a carry-over from the brick wall in the original club opened by Improv founder Budd Friedman in Manhattan in 1963.

The brick motif is carried over in the lobby, which will pay tribute to those legendary comics who have trod various Improv stages over the years. (Jim Carrey was once doorman at the New York City club.)

But the old Irvine Improv has its own rich history: Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne, Tim Allen and Billy Crystal headlined there.

During its first years of operation in the late ‘80s, Hartman said, the Irvine club was the No. 1 Improv in the then-five-club chain and one of the highest-grossing comedy clubs in the country.

But with dwindling foot traffic due to competition from other shopping centers and a change in tenant mix at University Center, Hartman began looking for a new location several years ago.

“We did OK, but it was never what it once was,” he said.

By moving the Improv to the much more accessible Spectrum, Hartman is banking on drawing from the burgeoning population in South County.

With the opening of the Improv and the New Year’s opening of the relocated Crazy Horse Steak House--Southern California’s leading country music club--around the corner from the comedy club, the Irvine Spectrum is poised to become one of the premiere destinations for live entertainment in Orange County.

“I’m pulling out all the stops,” said Hartman, 36, who also owns the Brea Improv, runs the Improv in West Hollywood and books talent for all of the clubs in the chain. “I’ve been in this business so long, a lot of people who are famous grew up in our club. We’re going to bring the best in here.”

In addition to Shoemaker, who will headline the club’s New Year’s Eve bash, the lineup for January includes: Jay Mohr (Jan. 7-9), Jamie Foxx (Jan. 14-15), Dave Attel (Jan. 19-23), and Elayne Boosler (Jan. 28-29).

The new Irvine Improv opens at a time when stand-up comedy, according to Hartman, is undergoing a “huge resurgence” in popularity.

Not only will 12 new Improvs join the 12 current clubs in the next 2 1/2 years, he said, but chainwide at the end of October, “we eclipsed our best year ever. Our sales were up substantially.”

There are a number of reasons for that, Hartman said.

For one, he said, stand-up comedy is no longer seen virtually everywhere on television as it was during the stand-up explosion a decade ago.

“It’s back to being special and unique,” he said. “There is nothing like a live performance. When you can sit back and watch someone live, it’s a whole different experience.”

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The Improv is in the Irvine Spectrum Center, 71 Fortune Drive. (949) 854-5455.