Improv Club
It was down to the last two in a face off. They both put their fists over their palm and began as the crowd roared. The crowd was evenly divided with around 10 people on each side screaming, cheering and yelling their persons name. Their arms were flying in the air every which direction. “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.” I couldn’t help but laugh through it all as I screamed and cheered along with them.
After two rounds that were tied there was finally a winner. That half of the audience cheered and jumped up and down. They gave the winner a high-five then calmed down for instructions. Just as everything had calmed down, a faculty member peeked in from the connecting room and asked if we could be quiet. The president apologized and said we would keep it down. Everyone started to laugh and the Vice President Liana Lemus said, “we told them we would be loud.”
This was just the beginning of an hour full of laughing and acting. The Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) Improv club was only getting started with their weekly meeting that takes place every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in Ben Hill Griffin on campus. This group of people has grown to be a family.
“My favorite thing is the people for sure,” Liana said. “They’re the reason it’s so much fun, bouncing off of their humor and what not.”
Out of the roughly 40 member group everyone knows each other by name. They are so close that tears were shed saying good bye for the seniors last club meeting.
The Improv club is a creative safe space for these students to come to and be fun, wacky and not themselves. It’s a great place for endless laughter, dirty jokes and impromptu acting.
My only connection with the Improv club started my freshman year when my now ex-boyfriend introduced me to Liana. She immediately invited me to the club, but I didn’t take her up on the offer until two years later. She was so excited that I would be coming and had no hesitation even when I told her I would be writing a story on it.
I walked in, Liana greeted me at the door, she told me to sign-in, grab a slice of pizza and find a seat. She was now the vice-president of the club and had many roles in organizing everything.
As I looked around the room I saw a few familiar faces, one girl I had acting class with was practically sitting on top of her boyfriend with their arms intertwined. A professor in the theater department who I have seen around sat in the far back. People were scattered all over, many sat on the tables with their backs to the front and others stood along the sides. They announced their big Improvaganza event where they all preform. Then the faculty advisor for the club stood up and gave a little speech on how they can make money doing improv over the summer. I was listening but I didn’t understand how someone could make money doing improv and he really didn’t make it clear.
Next were the rules but of course they couldn’t just say them. They had the executive board stand in the front. They were all wearing black shirts that said “Please Laugh” on the front then the name of the club and their position on the back. They started saying the rules one word at a time. The first person would start, “rule” then the next person “number” then another person, “one” and this continued. Then when they got to the big idea they would all shout it out and all the audience would say it with them. Everyone in the room seemed to know them all. They were fun rules about making sure you laugh and have fun when acting.
After that we started with the games. Each executive member planned for a game and would lead it. The first game was drawn from a little treasure chest box that had a sticker on it that said box. The first one she pulled out she immediately crumbled and threw to the floor. The next one she looked at said, “LOL” with a penis drawn on it. Then she finally found a paper that had an actual game on it, it read taxi game.
This game is played with four chairs to mimic a taxi. Each person acts a certain way and the rest of the people in the taxi have to conform to how they are acting. The taxi driver, played by Liana, was a dirty man who was obsessing over himself. He looked out the window and called to some sorority girls. Then a guy came in and was acting like a Frat guy. He asked what frat Liana was in and she said, “sigma apple pie”. The scene then added a girl who acted like a frog, the entire car started singing “Crazy Frog” while they squatted on their chairs. Then the last rider was someone who said they were on a carousel. They then all grabbed their chairs and started moving in a circle going up and down, up and down. Some added twist, then she said reverse and they all started moving in the opposite direction.
It was so cool to see how quick people could be on their feet and how they could change their character in a second to match those of others.
The next game was an infomercial game. The leader went fishing through a box of random props that had anything from pipes to back-scratcher. and pulled out a random thing. Then she asked the audience what it should be. After that, the two people would pretend they were on an infomercial trying to sell that products. Then they would take questions. The first thing was a PVC pipe, the audience said it was a new ear wax cleaner. The people playing demonstrated and said it could be used for even more. They said you stick it up to your friends ear and suck. The next round was a paint roller that was a new Ferrari.
The Improv club being a tight family really showed in their inside jokes. There were many moments people were on the floor laughing at things I didn’t get. A guy had some batteries and added them to the prop collection. Another girl then said “now comes with batteries.” It went by unheard the first time but Liana told everyone she made a funny joke, she then repeated it and everyone started laughing really hard. That laughing turned into clapping, she started bowing, and people then started standing up for her. The whole ordeal took up a few minutes. Something so random got taken so far but there was so much love and appreciation for a funny joke.
The next game was objection. Many different scenes played out like a wedding and a first date at Gamestop. There were two groups of two who played the same characters and when one group did something questionable the other group would yell I object and give a reason. One reason used was that a girls voice was fancy and yet she had claimed she didn’t have anything fancy. If the judge said sustained then the groups would switch.
Then the last game we played was f**k up. This game was different scenes with demanded f**k ups. One was at a condom factory and another was at Home Depot. When the girls at Home Depot were told to f**k up they started to pretend to pour paint all over themselves.
Overall this experience was a lot of fun but it was defiantly a “you had to be there” kind of experience. The energy in the room was so high and fun. There was such a free and open spirit and all personality and ideas were excepted.
“Doing improv has done a lot for me. It’s definitely a self esteem boost, it’s a good way to help me just relax and have a good time in the middle of the week to break up the bullshit of work and school, and it helps me with mental quickness for sure,” said Liana.
The Improv club is such a cool fun place, if I stuck to it maybe one day I would have the nerve to participate in the games and make a fool of myself for fun, playing in rock, paper, scissors was enough for me and every game had a multitude of hands that went unnoticed. Maybe a few more meetings and when they actually learned my name, I would have the confidence to participate in a game, however, I did discover a tiny world of enthusiastic non-judgemental people here on my campus which was a huge discovery.
