Black Sheep Improv performances on Tuesday and Thursday nights bring laughter and strong bonds.
For Black Sheep Improv, even with hours of practice, the challenge is to take a stage with only trust in others and the idea that anything can happen.
Without a script for guidance, Black Sheep Improv brings laughter to the stage in Front Room on Tuesday at 8 p.m. and Baker Theatre on Thursday at 9 p.m.
Black Sheep Improv is an audition-in improv group with two smaller groups within it called ‘troupes’.
“Improv is hard to explain,” Zane Tracy, a senior studying video production, said. “Improv is really just having fun with your friends and showing everyone how much you know and trust your friends.”
Tracy says that, technically, improv is making up scenes and playing off the ideas of other members, but there are greater complexities involved when on stage and when practicing.
For Matt Albani, a junior studying journalism, the biggest element is the connections made with the other people on stage, which allow everyone to be on the same page.
“All the people I perform with are my friends,” Albani said. “When you have that connection of ‘I know what you’re thinking right now and I am going to walk out on stage and match what you’re thinking,’ that’s a big part of it.”
Black Sheep Improv tries to establish a relationship between scene partners so there are not “two random people who don’t have a storyline,” said •Allyson Kuehn, a sophomore studying nutrition.
According to Kuehn, the anticipation of not knowing what happens next adds to the excitement.
“It’s easier to just go with the flow,” Kuehn said. “You already have a history (with your partners) so it’s like a regular conversation.”
Black Sheep Comedy is attempting to start a new system to rotate everybody within different troupes in order to mix up people performing together and allows a different dynamic according to Tracy.
Improv is technically doing scenes that are all made up, but there are more challenges that go into it, Tracy said. A general concept of improv is “yes and.”
“The concept of ‘yes and’ is your partner says something and the ‘yes’ part is you accept it,” Tracy said.
The people on stage have to accept what is said, even if it is something outrageous, such as a person claiming to be a bear, Tracy said. In that situation, people on stage have to stay on the same page and add to the scene with a bear now present.
Albani recalled once backing out of a scene he ruined after attempting to make a joke or a pun that left the audience silent.
“One show, I tried doing the one-liner thing and it didn’t go over well,” Albani said. “I opened up a fake window and I crawled out the fake window. That was how I left the scene and left the stage. I felt so bad.”
Tracy also said that editing, which usually means going to the next scene, could be a little difficult because many times people are afraid to end someone else’s scene. But when the scene becomes resolved or turns into dialogue without action, it begins to drag on.
The philosophy is normally when an improviser feels a scene should end, the others on stage feel that the scene should have ended thirty seconds ago, Albani said.
Being on stage can be intimidating and can also get a little out of hand, but in the end the best thing to do is to improvise for each other, Tracy said.
“When I’m with some of they people I perform with the most … A lot of times, we’re just trying to make each other laugh,” Tracy said. “As long as you think it’s funny, you’re going to be fine.”
@liz_backo
eb823313@ohio.edu
