ActUP group shows off its quick thinking during "Back to School"
By Maureen Inouye
Everyone loves to laugh. High pitched, screeching, snorting - it's all good.
UP's ActUP group is devoted to bringing those laughs to campus with its new monthly improv comedy nights.
ActUP, traditionally UP's drama club, has taken a humorous turn under this year's new board.
"Our focus is improv," said senior Noel Peterson, ActUP's vice president.
The word improv originally comes from the word improvisation. Improvisational acting involves participants acting spontaneously, usually in response to audience suggestions.
Before this semester, ActUP only rehearsed improv a few times a year - before each of the Pacific Northwest Collegiate Improv Tournaments. Despite this lack of regular practice, UP won the tournament in 2005 and 2007.
Now, ActUP rehearses every Sunday night at 6 p.m. in Mago Hunt. All students are invited to join the group for its weekly practices.
"We've been trying to get improv at UP for a long time," Peterson said.
But how do improv groups practice? Everything is supposed to be spontaneous right?
Peterson and ActUP's president Stephanie Bayne lead the group in improv games to improve its technique.
The games are used during the performances as well. The club's first show was this past Friday. For the past two weeks, the club members met at 11 p.m. every night to "play" the improv games.
"I had no idea I'd have so many super-dedicated, hard working people," Peterson said of the members' commitment.
Many of the club's members began their improv careers in high school improv groups.
"It's a super fun stress-reliever," freshman Marne Warner said.
Warner likes the improv games that include all the players, as many of them actually involve teams designed to compete against one another to make the audience laugh.
"It gives me energy, and then I feed off other people's energy too," freshman Colin Dorwart said.
Dorwart likes the games that require him to act like someone else.
"I like to think I'm a character actor," he said.
Right now, the group is primarily composed of freshmen and the participants come from diverse majors.
Peterson attributes the success of the club this year to its presence at the activities fair at the beginning of the semester.
On Friday night, ActUP's Improv Show theme was "Back to School." The performance was well-attended, with students even sitting in the aisles.
To advertise the event, the group also performed at the Shipstad Coffeehouse.
Before the show, the students "warmed-up" by playing games down in the gray box, a small rehearsal space on the lower level of Mago Hunt.
During the show, two teams competed against one another in most of the games. In keeping with the school theme, the teams' names were "Locker Rockers" and "Hall Monitors." Each team had two females and two males, but other members of the club were invited onstage for both the first and last games.
Besides Dorwart and Warner, the main actors were Patrick Gorski, Will Blowers, Court Reeves, Tiger Torelle and Danielle Larson. The "principal," or host, was Brittney Harris. The two "teachers" were Bayne and Peterson.
The first segment, where all ActUP members were invited onstage, was called "Do-Run-Run." The audience is asked to provide a name. Then, each player is required to create a line that rhymes with that name - while singing the "Do-Run-Run" song. If the player does not come up with a line fast enough, he leaves the game.
Improv groups usually have a catalog of games to practice with or perform during a show.
Countdown: A team performs a scene in one minute, and then does the same scene again in 30 seconds, 15 seconds, seven seconds, and 1.64 seconds, until the team members are falling all over each other to finish.
Wikipedia: The group is given a subject by the audience and has to pretend to know facts about it, usually resulting in random, hilarious attempts to make things up.
Scantron: Each team performs a scene, and, during the scene, is interrupted to give answers to questions about what it is doing from the host. The funniest answers then have to be incorporated into the rest of the scene.
Replay: A team does a scene and then is given criteria such as "Russian accents" with which to perform the scene again.
These and several other games were shown at the Improv Show on Friday night. The games and the main players will rotate at each of the monthly shows.
The audience loved the teams' performances. Chatter during the 10 minute recess revealed students trying to remember the funniest lines and jokes.
"It was frickin' hilarious!" junior Kory Keeney said.
ActUP will be showcasing improv games every Wednesday at EspressoUP, and the next official performance will be Oct. 26.
