The Curtain Drops on Improv Theater for the New York Police

In improv theater, actors follow one key rule to keep the action going: Always respond with “yes, and ...”

But when a Brooklyn theater company asked Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to let officers join a 10-week improv program meant to build compassion and insight, her answer was a scene-stopping no.

Commissioners had routinely approved the requests since 2014, but the Police Department is contending with a staffing crisis that has left leaders scrambling to patrol high-crime areas and respond to protests. With summer, an especially busy time, approaching, no officer could be spared, according to department officials.

Still, the response stunned Terry Greiss, executive director of the Irondale Ensemble Project, a theater company based in a cavernous space with peeling paint and stained-glass windows on South Oxford Street in Brooklyn.

For 10 years, Mr. Greiss directed “To Protect, Serve and Understand,” an acting troupe born out of the killing of Eric Garner in 2014. It paired seven officers with seven civilians, and the group went through acting exercises meant to help both sides see each other’s humanity and to create, as Mr. Greiss called it, “a theater of empathy.”

He had expected to start another 10-week stint this summer. But last month he was told that the department would not be sending officers this year.