A local musician has found a new calling – comedy improvisation – and a new home for it in Ocean Beach at The Template.

A collective of artists, locals, and entrepreneurs, The Template at 5032 Niagara Ave. is, above all, an incubator for start-up small businesses.

That is proving to be the case once again as The Template has now added stand-up and improvisational comedy to its growing educational and entertainment mix.

That suits musician-turned-comedian Jason Ott, whose day job is Ottographix Graphic Design at 5009 Saratoga Ave., just fine. Through improv, he’s found a new artistic world to explore, and an appreciative audience to witness him and others doing it.

“I fell in love with improv, I just got hooked,” admitted Ott, a local guitarist and singer who relishes the opportunity to create comedy skits on demand, and on the spur of the moment. “It’s so much more fun than playing music,” he added.

Ott went all-in on his new calling, opting to learn his new avocation at Finest City Improv in North Park, which offers instruction in improv techniques and procedures.

With short-form improv, Ott noted you typically get a suggestion from the audience, like you’re a captain on a boat and you’ve come in and you’ve got a problem. Then, he said, you and your comedy team set the scene up based on that and go from there.

Improvisational comedy is documented to have existed since at least 391 B.C. Modern improvisational comedy, as it is practiced in the West, falls generally into two categories: shortform and longform.

Shortform improv consists of short scenes usually constructed from a predetermined game, structure, or idea and driven by an audience suggestion. Longform improv performers create shows in which short scenes are often interrelated by story, characters, or themes. Longform shows may take the form of an existing type of theatre, for example, a full-length play or Broadway-style musical.

“At first it’s terrifying,” said Ott about performing improv, adding it was especially difficult for a musician like him who’s used to memorizing the music and lyrics and then just going out and reproducing that on stage.

“When you as a team go out on stage with improv, you have absolutely nothing in your head,” he pointed out. “The audience makes a suggestion and we all just stare at each other, until someone figures out something to say, says it, and then the other people add to it.”

There’s something inherently exciting and motivating about that exchange. “You learn to love that challenge,” noted Ott. “You love to see what happens in the next two minutes while you’re making it up.”

Ott and his team named Existential Crisis were among improvisationists performing on May 13 before a live audience at The Template on a Friday night. One team did a musical improvisation. Another utilized some physical comedy in their sketch.

Existential’s skit was introduced by Ott who performed a faux fight with another improv team member. “We’re crazy, which is where we got the name Existential Crisis, and we need help,” said Ott. In introducing their skit, Ott asked the audience, ‘What do you do to get through an existential crisis?’”

“Coffee,” answered the crowd.

Existential Crisis then played off that suggestion, spoofing Starbucks and the coffee craze at length, with one member characterizing coffee as “a legal drug that’s pedaled.” And the team ran with it from there with one member noting he “recently just got off coffee.”

With practice, Ott noted that improvisationists “learn how to play off each other so we can create right here at the moment. And, man oh man, you come up with the craziest, most absolutely funny things that can ever happen.”

Added Ott: “I was once a washing machine. Recently, I was asked to be Sean Connery being eaten by a tiger.”

For those who’ve been bitten by the improv bug, Ott remarked: “We’re improv nerds. We’ll drive you nuts.”

Ott concluded the goal of improv as a start-up at The Template is “not to get rich,” at least not right away, but rather to think of improv as an investment and to just “put on a good show because it’s fun.”

The next improv show is Friday, June 24 from 7-9 p.m. at 5032 Niagara Ave. Tickets are $15. For more information, visit obtemplate.com.