Improv Jam’s creative actors provided the audience with a night full of laughter. The show took place on Friday, Feb. 29 in the Little Theater, and was directed by seniors Oliver Perlo and Raven Belson.
The performance featured numerous improvised scenes with themes ranging from adult diaper selling to problematic conjoined quintuplets.
Throughout the show, Perlo and Belson would prompt unexpected twists on the actors which allowed each skit to be unique from the others.
“Improv is very reliant on the audience. We definitely cater to the people we are performing to, so we want to make them feel included. We want to make sure that the things we’re doing are gonna be the most entertaining to them,” said Belson.
The show started with a warm welcome by the enthusiastic directors, Perlo and Belson, wearing shirts picturing jars of jam and pumping the audience up with their own comedic talent.
For the first few scenes, the actors were randomly selected to perform improvised skits about topics suggested by the audience. Eighth graders, parents, high schoolers, and teachers alike were entertained by the actors’ silly takes on these topics.
“Improv is not an easy thing to do, it’s easy to get discouraged and be brought down. But these people came back to the club week after week. They committed to it and I think tonight, just having an audience with laughs and the music and everything, it just made it all real and really showed them that their hard work paid off,” said Perlo.
One of the many twists led by Belson was called “the magic bell,” where Belson pressed the bell after an actor said or did something, and the actor had to change their action. Belson often pressed the bell multiple times for one movement, forcing the actors to add very random factors to the skit.
Another factor that added to the organized chaos of Improv Jam is that any audience member could take the place of a performer in Improv Jam’s interactive game called “Freeze.”
Being able to interact with the performance as an audience member in Improv Jam made being a part of the audience feel so special compared to what it’s like viewing a normal production.
According to freshman Kataya Graves, “being in the audience for Improv Jam was a lot of fun, it was super engaging. Even though we couldn’t actually participate in most of the games, we were still included by making suggestions for everything.”
