A long, lean guy with a look of high-plains blankness and a mind that churns much faster than his face lets on, longtime improviser Rob Grabowski gets audiences howling without seeming to try. He's soft-spoken, often still, and not given to spouting off whatever crazy thoughts come to him. Instead, he tends to make each crazy thought real, reacting to the comic strangeness around him in ways that real people would. This makes funny ideas funnier. His other gift is for elevating the everyday to the truly strange. At a Tantrum show this past summer, a scene about him trying to pick chewing gum off the ground and then properly disposing of it developed into a miniature suite of modern-day anxieties: germophobia, the guilt over not recycling, and the need to look like you worry about these things more than you really do. Subdued in demeanor but manic inside, Grabowski not only sees all the possibilities of a comic situation but also works through the best of them with rare patience, discipline and intelligence.