With a majority of the group facing graduation, the members of OU Improv have set their sights on making an impact on the university’s comedy scene by Spring Semester’s end.
OU Improv troupes Black Sheep Inc. and Six to Midnight continue to take the Baker University Center Theater stage as the club looks to continue the success of this past semester’s weekly shows and finish this year’s run on a high note.
The student organizations recently received merchandise from HBO and produced a show themed after the cable network’s popular show Girls on Jan. 24.
Carole Ivan, a member of OU Improv’s executive board and a senior studying marketing and management, works as an intern at HBO’s marketing firm, GMR Marketing, and helped create the event.
Ivan said the collective effort of the group and the Campus Involvement Center helped to make for a successful show.
“It was actually one of the boys’ idea to make it Girls-themed, so we ran with it,” Ivan said. “We tried to get them to wear dresses but they politely refused.”
From starting out in a 20-seat room in Scripps Hall to making the move to its current home in Baker University Center, the group, which practices a long-form style of improvisation, has watched its popularity grow quickly.
OU Improv president Jessie Cadle, a senior studying journalism, said the group’s weekly routines now attract between 250 and 300 attendees, a figure that has inspired her and the other senior members to push the semester’s potential to its limit.
“We’re going to pump it out this semester and try to diversify our act,” Cadle said. “We really just want to make a lasting legacy during our last semester.”
Part of this effort is the creation of a third troupe, Ready for Men. The trio, comprised of members Travis Koury, Kyle Miller and Caleb Fullen, perform a more abstract and experimental form of improv in the Bobcat Student Lounge each Tuesday at 8 p.m.
Expanding the group’s reach in the comedy community might be important to preparing for the change in personnel that will cause a severe shift in who fills the positions in the troupes and executive board.
Both Black Sheep Inc. and Six to Midnight will have very different lineups at the start of the 2013-14 school year. Ivan and Cadle are two of the expected 11 members who will depart after graduating this semester.
Cadle said having to face the reality of leaving behind Ohio University and the organization that has played such a large role in her college experience has been difficult.
“I can’t even fathom the end of my time at OU Improv when it has defined my college career in so many ways,” Cadle said. “It ending is like college ending, and that’s terrifying.”
jd202409@ohiou.edu
