The MFJS Reporter — Winter 2020 M-W

Improvisation, or improv, is a unique form of live theatre in which the entire plot, characters, and dialogue of a scene are made up on the spot. Actors often make up scenes through games that include many audience suggestions. What draws DU students to Sturm Hall every Wednesday night is the knowledge that no show put on by Skintight Outrage will ever be the same.  

“Improv is a nice way to relax mid week and it is really funny. To me, it is just something different from my normal routine. I love to get a good laugh in there,” said sophomore Emma Smith. 

Smith attends improv with friends almost every Wednesday, and she feels like it is a way to connect with her friends as well as other students at DU. 

The connection with the audience on Wednesday, Feb. 9, did not disappoint. Skintight Outrage structures their weekly shows through different “games” that actors play. The team chooses a unique set of games each week that involve audience participation and actor improvisation. Each game is different, so the audience and actors are always surprised and entertained.

This show started out with a game called Tinder. In this game, actors go on stage and describe an “ideal” partner that they are looking for. Then, another actor comes up and acts as the “match.” To participate, the audience was asked to suggest a spot for their first date. 

Immediately, the audience fired off first date ideas. “Stadium Inn” and “Crimson and Gold” were two standouts. To DU students, to put the actors in the setting of these popular near-campus bars was hilarious, and the actors did not disappoint. 

“I love improv because I can do and create whatever I want each week,” said Kat Wilhelmsen, a freshman member of Skintight Outrage. 

Wilhelmsen joined improv for her first year at DU because she did it in high school and wanted to be a part of something that reminded her of home. For her, each Wednesday night is also a way to de-stress and be creative. 

One of my favorite things about improv at DU is the connection that Skintight Outrage establishes with the audience. Since the actors are DU students as well as the audience, everyone has similar experiences to laugh about. Since so much of improv is about audience participation, scenes often contain jokes that people who are not DU students would never understand. 

“Improv is fun because it’s interactive, and even though I do not know the actors or audience members, it feels like we are all a part of something and working together in creating a funny show each night,” said another sophomore improv attendee, Grace Kayser. 

Laughter and happiness was palpable throughout the rest of the show. One standout scene would be during the game Recycled Material, when actors, in the middle of a scene, randomly read out lines of dialogue that audience members wrote on pieces of paper before the show. The audience suggestion for a place was Ben and Jerry’s, and actors placed themselves in the ice cream shop scene perfectly.

The excitement and anticipation of the crowd was obvious, as everyone waited with baited breath to see what line of dialogue that actors were going to be forced to read. Each random line of dialogue changed the scene drastically, and the magical part was that audience members got to watch a scene be built right in that moment on stage. 

At the end of the show, laughter and smiles were spread all around, from the members on stage to the seats in the audience. Everyone in the room knew that they just witnessed something special that can never be created the same way again. To me, it was one of the funniest shows I have seen the group put on. 

After another successful show, Wilhelmsen stated, “Everything is up to the actors, leaving so much up to the imagination. Every show is so different, and you never know what is going to happen.”