Photo Credit: Jared Taylor[/caption]Members of the Improvicons, an OHS improv troupe created near the end of fall in 2013, have big plans for next year. Run by theatre teacher Jared Taylor and captained by senior Anastasia Zitko, the troupe hopes to become bigger and perform more shows. Currently, it has performed at a Peace Club concert and PTSO variety show. It plans to perform at the theatre awards night as well.
Taylor summarized what members of the troupe do as “[trying] to create funny circumstances off the top of their head.” Improv, or improvisation, is the art of acting without having a script or lines. Improv actors bounce off each other to establish scenes, working together to make a plotline make sense.
The name of the Improvicons is based off of the Decepticons in the Transformers universe. The logo, a mask, is a modified version of the Decepticon mask.
The troupe practices every Friday afternoon in the theatre room. Members play two types of games to hone their skills -- short-form games and long-form games. Short-form games, the type used when they perform at events, let the audience interact more with the performers and shorten the length of the improv pieces. An example of a short-form game is the dating game, where actors pretending to be contestants in a dating game are given personalities or qualities, then another actor (the bachelor or bachelorette) asks questions in order to guess who they are. Long-form games let actors stay in character for longer periods of time, forcing them to improvise constantly. An example of a long-form game is Armando Diaz, where actors try to tell stories and keep elements of the stories consistent.
Zitko said that being captain means she is “kind of like the leader of the group.” She has no “special authority,” but is a “leader figure.” She helps organize events and plan activities. She joined the troupe “as soon as I knew there was going to be a new group in theatre” so she could improve her improvisation skills. She became leader after a vote.
Taylor created the Improvicons in order to “have a different sort of theatre group” and “to reach a different group of people.” Members auditioned near the end of November. He compared auditions to “auditioning for a play,” because current members will have to audition again to be members next year. He hopes that SMART Lunch will be approved because it will be “a lot better for” the troupe and it can “do shows during that time.”
Jay Huskins, a junior on the troupe, said he decided to join because “I always enjoy doing improv in class. I thought it would be really fun with a concentrated group.” Also, some of his friends were auditioning. He “would encourage people to go and see” the troupe, and said that “we’re planning to have a lot of the kinks worked out by next year.” He appreciates being in the troupe because it is “another way to get to know some of the people I already should have been friends with.” Learning improvisational skills has helped him outside of the troupe because it “keeps you quick on your feet.”
Luke Taylor, another junior and member of the troupe, echoed Huskins’ sentiments. He stated, “I’m pretty close to everyone that’s on improv. We’ve kind of become… a family. It won’t be the same next year. We’re going to lose a few, we probably won’t get the same group.” His favorite improv game is the dating game, because the audience likes it and “it’s more consistently funny than most of the games.” He is “really excited about Improvicons’ production next year.”
Zitko said she hopes, after she leaves, that “this group [can] keep improving and having more ideas... I just hope that kind of legacy can continue.”
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