Rhonda Ealy, pictured here in a 2013 rehearsal with Bend improv troupe Triage, will lead the free Last Thursday Improv Jam at Bend's Community Center. (Bulletin file)

Spilled secrets can have any number of effects.

They’ll be the stuff of comedy tonight in a performance by improv troupe Triage at Cascades Theatre in Bend (see “If you go”).

If you’ve seen an improv show, even “Whose Line is it Anyway?” on TV, you know that improv performers rely on suggestions from the audience to create on-the-spot laughs.

The long-enduring Central Oregon group Triage can play short improv games as seen on TV, but its eight members also have a knack for long-form improv, creating wacky scenarios on the spot, each idea building on earlier ones.

Triage is putting a new spin on the idea of taking suggestions: Over the past few weeks, they’ve been collecting people’s secrets, having them mailed discreetly to a Bend address. The result will be tonight’s “Declassified” show.

The troupe will perform twice this evening: The first show, at 7 p.m., is an all-ages set of short-form improv games. Reality Benders, a newer group assembled about 2.5 years ago, will open.

At 9 p.m. comes “Declassified,” the long-form show for which Triage has been collecting secrets.

There’s no telling what kind of stories will come of the secrets that Triage has in its possession.

That’s partly because Rhonda Ealy, improv teacher and director of Triage since 2006, had resisted any temptation to peek at what’s been sent, in keeping with the spirit of taking material from the audience and getting creative under pressure.

Triage formed 12 years ago under the guidance of professional improv performer Michelle Johnson. After she moved away from Bend nearly a decade ago, Triage member Ealy took over leadership of the group, which has been performing with much of its core intact ever since.

“We’ve been playing together a long time,” said Ealy. “I think we would all much rather be good improvisers than be funny.”

That’s not to say they aren’t funny, but rather that they’re dedicated to the internal logic of what they’re creating together.

A philosophy of acceptance and contribution — often summed up as “yes and” by improv performers — is a major part of what they do.

At a rehearsal two weeks ago, Triage members showed the skills, timing and willingness to go with whatever is in front of them that comes from performing together for more than a decade.

Comedic musician Jumpin’ Joyce Respess was also on hand with her acoustic guitar, as she will be for both shows tonight at Cascades Theatre, to strum accompaniment when Triage creates one of its “organic songs.”

At the rehearsal, Ealy asked this reporter for a suggestion. “I’m so brain dead right now. Oh, God,” I replied.

“I’m So Brain Dead Right Now!” Ealy and another member announced in sync, ready to seize and capitalize on even the lamest suggestion. They clapped enthusiastically as Respess started strumming chords, Triage’s members taking turns at verses, the song concluding with “ooh woo ohh” background vocals while others sang “I’m so brain dead.”

You kind of had to be there, which is the whole idea with improv.

Ealy said that in order to practice for tonight’s “Declassified” show, “We’ve been thinking of friends’ secrets.”

Respess then told the group a secret about bottoming out, or scraping the underside, of someone’s sports car, “and (I) never told her,” she said.

From that, an elaborate long-form piece was born, involving a bottomed-out Porsche, a gas leak, dying parents, fat being sucked out of faces, a maniacal, fat-sucking doctor (aka “fat-suctualist”) and the specter of divorce, all of it created in the present.

What’s kept Triage going all these years of monthly shows and weekly rehearsals?

“The camaraderie. The love of improv. I mean, we are really creating every week. You’d think after 12 years, you’d think, ‘Oh, I know that person’s shtick, I’m not going to hear anything new,’” Ealy said.

“Every week, we go home, still, with our stomachs and our faces hurting from laughing. I mean, I couldn’t live without it. And I know that’s the way we all feel about improv, that it’s life changing.”

If you can’t make it tonight, Triage will perform again April 10, again making use of secrets to compose the show. Address yours to Declassified, 1455 NW Ithaca Ave., Bend, OR 97701.

And if you’re interested in improv beyond merely watching a show, Ealy and Triage member Judi Van Houweling will lead a six-week beginning class on Wednesday evenings. They’ll be held at 6 p.m. at Bend’s Community Center and start next week. Tuition is $75.

— Reporter: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com