OU Improv debuted its first musical comedy show in Baker Center Theater this weekend to fundraise for an improvisational conference in the spring.
Comprising of seven members from both the Black Sheep, Inc. troupe and the Amsterdarn Alliterates troupe, Saturday’s performance implemented long- and short-form improvisation, audience interactions and group songs centered on an audience-suggested word.
“We have all wanted to try musical improv for a while. … We started working with musical improv this quarter, and we have been rehearsing for three weeks,” said Emilee Copus, a junior studying media studies and president of OU Improv.
Long-form improv focuses on character development, Copus said. The group needed a fundraiser and wanted to perform with music, so the show was a perfect fit, she added.
“This event is to fundraise for an improv professional, Matt Holmes, to come in the spring,” said Sarah Hess, a senior studying political science. Members of the group met Holmes at an improv conference at Oberlin College last year.
In the spring, OU Improv will host an improv conference that will be free and open to the public. Holmes will lead workshops that will allow members of the public to familiarize themselves with improv, Copus said.
Saturday’s show followed a format unlike the typical Thursday night performances at Mitchell Auditorium, Copus said.
“We used some short-form improv at the show and we don’t usually use those in the Thursday performances,” Copus said. “We wanted to find a good balance and we wanted to make it dynamic.”
The show opened with performers acting out impromptu scenes from television shows that the audience suggested, such as Law & Order. Next, they created a song based on the audience-suggested word of “spam,” creating a parody of its merits and grossness.
Then they moved to a long-form scene in which the audience called out a setting, a hobby and details.
OU Improv also implemented musical Mad Libs, in which audience members filled in words for “Summer Loving” from Grease and “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid, Hess said.
In the next portion of the performance, the quartet of male performers asked for an audience member onstage, and received Amanda Hefflinger, a freshman studying broadcast journalism, who answered questions about her favorite things.
“I loved the idea of mixing music and comedy – that’s like, everyone’s two favorite things, right?” Hefflinger said.
Ending with a group song, the members received rousing applause.
OU Improv garnered $216 with about 80 people in attendance, Copus said.
“We are close to our monetary goal for Matt Holmes,” Copus said.
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