ActUP's Improv group put on a show that had students roaring with laughter
By Rosemary Peters
On Friday Jan. 30, geckos attacked the campus, an ex-girlfriend stole a yak and a student went to Hogwarts with his magical ice cream truck.
"We are so proud of the support we get from the campus," freshman and ActUP memberKaty Portell said. "It seems no matter how last minute we plan shows we always have a great turn out. We really do have an amazing and dedicated fan base here on campus."
Friday night also happened to be the night that UP's Improvisation group ActUP spent two hours entertaining a crowd of over 50 people in Mago Hunt Theater with their antics and on-the-spot comedy skits.
"Improv is a blast. We have a ton of fun up there and our purpose is to make the audience laugh as hard as possible for two hours, which is a pretty awesome purpose," Portell said. "If you get up there and make a fool of yourself, a lot of times that's the point."
Although they are great at making things up on the spot, that skill doesn't just come naturally. Just like any other club or sports team, members of ActUP spends two hours every Thursday and Sunday honing their skills to improve their verbal wit and reaction times.
"At the practices we do warm-ups and then play some games that are meant to be exercises for character and scene building," Portell said. "We also practice some of the games we use in the show to learn how to develop the scenes and such."
Friday night's performance showed that the practice paid off. ActUP has about 15 members and they have learned to play off of each other perfectly. The entire performance was a smooth transition from scene to scene and actor to actor.
The show had a "Who's Line is it Anyway?" feel and the audience was roaring with laughter the entire time.
Toward the beginning of the night, ActUP warmed the audience up with a game called Chain Murder. In this game, the players were only allowed to speak gibberish. Chain Murder started out with freshman Doug Orofino miming a secret location, occupation and object to freshman Spencer Holst.
When Holst thought he knew what Orofino was miming, he made a silly pelvic-thrusting move while yelling out in gibberish and Orofino moved on to mime the next thing. Once Holst thought he knew all three things, he mimed the location, occupation and object to the next person in line sophomore Marie Villanueva.
This pattern continued for a few more people, and after the time limit was up, each person had to guess what they thought the original location, occupation and object were.
"What I love most about going to these shows is how outlandish some of the skits become," sophomore Mike Bastasch said. "The Improv actors are just so good at what they do and games like the Chain Murder skit just make me laugh really hard. It was like a super-funny beefed-up game of telephone."
Another notable skit for the night was the Wikipedia game. Professors wouldn't be able to help but shake their heads and laugh as the entire improvisation group acted out the creation of a Wikipedia entry for "Swimming Pool."
"The Wikipedia scene was my favorite one of the night because I could totally believe that this is how some of those crazy entries are made," freshman Tina Schicchi said.
From the Wikipedia game, the night progressed to the most hilarious skit "Why I'm Dumping You." In this game, the audience yelled out three things that contributed to an intense breakup, while sophomore Wren Weichman, who played the boyfriend, hid in a back room.
Once Weichman came back on stage, he had to breakup with his girlfriend played by Kyle Richardson. Weichman had to guess his girlfriend's wrongdoings. Weichman was aided in this skit by Portell and sophomores Danielle Larson and Marie Villanueva who were acting out what his girlfriend did wrong.
When Weichman finally guessed all three of the infractions made by his girlfriend, which ranged from eating his hair to stealing his pet yak, he had to repeat the guessing process but the second time he guessed how he was going to leave her.
Another notable game for the night was "Four Corners" in which four people were given a different character and depending on which way they rotated, would act out a scene about that character's description.
This skit went from uproarious to epic when sophomore Colin Dorwart accidentally dropped sophomore April Vanderkamp flat on her face when he was supposed to be moving her around his yard like she was a statue.
"When Colin accidentally dropped April, at first I was like 'Oh no!' And then I saw her laughing and I couldn't help but just burst out into maniacal laughter," Bastasch said. "The skit was already incredibly funny, but that just tipped it to the point where my stomach hurt after I finished laughing. I think I even had tears in my eyes."
The show on Friday was just the first of many for this semester. The upcoming shows are on Feb. 13 and 20 from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. in the Mago Hunt Recital Hall.
"Anyone who wants to seriously forget about homework for a while should come out and enjoy the show," Portell said.
