house team at the UCBT in New York, where he also taught for many years. Missions / events All the missions share a certain modus operandi: Members ("agents") play their roles entirely straight, not breaking character or betraying that they are acting. IE claims the missions are benevolent, aiming to give the observers a laugh and a positive experience. Frozen Grand Central Improv Everywhere's most popular YouTube video is "Frozen Grand Central", which has received over 35 million views. The two-minute video depicts 207 IE Agents freezing in place simultaneously for five minutes in New York's Grand Central Terminal. The video was listed as number 49 in Urlesque's 100 Most Iconic Internet Videos. Martin Bashir declared on Nightline that the video was "one of the funniest moments ever captured on tape." According to Charlie Todd, the prank has been recreated by fans in 100 cities around the world. Fake U2 Concert On 21 May 2005, IE staged a fake U2 street concert on a rooftop in New York hours before the real U2 were scheduled to perform at Madison Square Garden. Just like at the filming of the band's Where the Streets Have No Name video in 1987, the police eventually shut the performance down, but not before IE was able to exhaust their four-song repertoire and get most of the way through an encore repeat of "Vertigo". The crowd, even those who had realized that this was a prank, shouted "one more song!", and then "let them play!" when the police officers arrived. This mission was number 23 on the VH1 countdown of the "40 Greatest Pranks." References Further reading Charlie Todd and Alex Scordelis, Causing a Scene, HarperCollins, 2009 External links Official website ImprovEverywhere YouTube channel Feature-length documentary on Improv Everywhere This American Life radio episode American comedians Culture of New York City Improvisational theatre Performance art in New York City Performance artist collectives Practical jokes