Molly Zafft pretends to be a radio broadcaster informing her listening audience about the antics of her zany cast mates to the right: David Bergstrom threatens to wallop Brad VanDoren while Michaela Buchheit and Lauren Murray look on.
Michael McHugh rapidly pulled white ragged pieces of paper from his hat and posed the situations and scenarios written by the audience to the 12 seniors participating in the 7th annual College in the Schools Theater Sports program
One scene, Adam meets Eve. Out walked Dylan Quaife and Michaela Buchheit. The two stand shoulder to shoulder for about 10 seconds until Quaife (Adam) turned and innocently asked, “Say Eve, would you like to get something to eat?”
The audience’s laughter lasted twice as long as the one-line skit, and the skits and laughter kept coming all night long under the guidance of the mischief-making McHugh.
Improvisational performances for actors are like a high-wire balancing act without a net. The only difference, of course, is when the act fails no one dies. Actors dust off and move on— rapidly. It is high-energy the entire time, about 1½ hours of giggles and guffaws for all involved.
Above left: Lauren Murray and Annika Stone introduce a variety of nonsensical items they say will help cure diarrhea. Yes, the cures they offered were far worse than the malady. Above right: Michael McHugh introduces AFS student Alexia Simon from Paraguay. Keeping with a 7-year tradition where AFS students are interviewed in their native language by a student who can neither speak nor understand that language, Alexi was interviewed by David Bergstrom, who told the audience what Alexis meant, or should have meant, or quite possibly meant, by her replies to his mangled questions.
Theater Sports originated with Keith Johnston of Calgary, Alberta. It is improvisational theater with a competitive sports angle. In a typical match two teams of improvisers perform scenes as judges score each performance on a scale of zero to five.
The audience also takes part, throwing out suggestions or in some cases, getting hauled onto the stage by the actors. There were plenty of both on this night; the chairs were full in the Arrowhead Center for the Arts.
The two teams were made up of seniors in Michael McHugh’s college literature class and were divided into two groups, the Wooly Mammoth Ninjas with Molly Zafft, David Bergstrom, Michaela Buchheit, Ashley Ross, Brad VanDoren and Lauren Murray; and the Blue Smurfs, which were made up of Cecelia Olsen, Dylan Quaife, Mike Sjogren, Alex Ditmanson, Ashley Deschampe and Annika Stone.
The money garnered by this event will be used to fund a trip to visit the Ordway and Guthrie theaters in April for McHugh’s college literature class, said McHugh.
All told a little over $1,000 was raised at the March 15 show.
McHugh said, “I want to thank the public for their continued support. Every year this gets bigger and better and we couldn’t do this without them. I also want to thank the kids for their enthusiasm and willingness to take part in this event. It’s their one big chance to get on stage and be a star for one night and they do a great job. It’s a lot of fun and a pleasure to be a part of.”
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