A year ago, when two friends with Hawai'i roots set out to bring a bit of Chicago's famed improv scene here, they envisioned pulling together local performers with similar artistic backgrounds.

But what they got, with the opening of Laughtrack Theater Company, is a sort of mixed-plate improvisational 'ohana.

The theater — Hawai'i's first devoted solely to improv performances and training — opened in Honolulu's arts district this fall, and aims to serve as home base for both long-standing troupes and newcomers to the art form.

Laughtrack focuses on long-form improv comedy. Performers solicit audience suggestions, then extemporaneously explore characters, relationships and themes while putting together something similar to a 25-minute one-act play.

"People can see a show, like what they see and learn how to do it," says the theater's artistic director, Shannon Winpenny. "All it takes is trust, non-judgment and getting yourself out there."

Winpenny is a Honolulu native and graduate of Chicago's Second City conservatory — alums include Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, Chris Farley and John Belushi — and iO (formerly Improv Olympics), along with Mike Myers and Amy Poehler, among others. Winpenny performs with other pros at the theater and teaches improv classes.

The theater's director, Kim Potter, grew up in Kailua and worked as manager for one of Winpenny's Chicago-based troupes. She handles the business side of the venture, which the women co-own.

Both say they're stunned but delighted that Laughtrack's training center, which has so far produced about a dozen graduates, is attracting students from "all walks of life," including some with no show-business ambition whatsoever.

"In Chicago, people who want to be on 'Saturday Night Live' or the 'Daily Show' " want to learn how to improvise, Winpenny says. "Here, it's a lot of people who simply want to try something different, or step out of themselves, or be creative."

She adds, "If someone had told me I'd be teaching an OHA (Office of Hawaiian Affairs) member, a carpenter, a baker, I wouldn't have believed it."

Complete with politicians, bartenders, housewives, construction workers, among others, "the theater has just become a really happy family," Winpenny says.

R. Kevin Garcia Doyle, artistic director and a performer for Loose Screws, one of Hawai'i's leading improv troupes, says established pros too are pleased to be folded into Laughtrack's 'ohana.

"We're a small-enough scene to benefit from one another's success," Garcia Doyle says, noting that local performers have long talked about how having a space dedicated to long-form improv could raise awareness about Hawai'i's take on the art form.

Chicago's style of long-form, developed over the last several decades, tends to play out on stage as a collage of scenes, Garcia Doyle says. Loose Screws and other Hawai'i groups focus more on storytelling and character development

Regardless of style, skilled improvisers say a satisfying show is tied to the unexpected.

"Sometimes when you're performing, there will just be this moment when all of the clouds part from your brain," and that of your scene partner's, Garica Doyle says. "Then one of you will say something ... that just brings down the house or is just brilliant in some completely unexpected way."

And improvisers count on their audience to help ignite creative sparks.

Last Friday night, an improv team sauntered onto Laughtrack's stage and asked the audience: "What do you love?" What do you wish for?"

Quick responses of "candy" and mention of romance prompted scenes about the perils of chocolate addiction and one man's over-the-top infatuation with a coffee-shop barista.

In addition to long-form, short-form improv is also part of the lineup at the theater. Known as game-based improvisation, the best known short-form is the television show "Whose Line is it Anyway?"

During last year's holiday season, when Winpenny and Potter were still mapping plans for the improv training program, they decided to offer graduates a run of four weeks to six weeks of performing for paying audiences. When the business partners had difficulty securing space for the runs in nightclub venues and elsewhere, they found their own — the site of a former keiki photography studio.

An intensive 3 1/2-week makeover followed, Potter recalls. "My dad was here every single day, painting and hanging drywall," she says. Several students also volunteered their day-job services, including a master carpenter and a sound-proofing expert.

"It really was a kokua-like" Potter says of the effort that transformed the studio into a theater that can seat up to about 60 audience members.

Winpenny adds, "We couldn't be happier to be where we are." Pointing out that Laughtrack is within walking distance of five theaters, art galleries, restaurants and night clubs, she says, "I think we're really part of something that's blossoming Downtown."