No scripts, no problem for Alpha Psi’s improv

By Jess Decina

Sophomore Kim Vogel has played various roles in the past year and a half, but none so challenging as this: “a human being trying to be the girlfriend of a tractor.”

“It was a game called ‘Tractor Accountants,’” she said. “It’s beyond crazy, the kind of characters that we come up with.”

This game, bizarre as it sounds, is all a part of Alpha Psi Omega’s improvised extravaganza entitled The Moving Picture Show, which opens tonight in the Spitz Studio Theater. But instead of a series of games that are unrelated to one another, this show follows the premise of long-form improv. According to senior Eddie Egan, one of the show’s co-directors, this type of improv is something the University has yet to see.

“When people hear improv, they usually think of Whose Line Is It Anyway?” he said. “It’s something different. It’s exciting because it’s something that’s really difficult to do.”

Egan, along with fellow director and junior Joe Sabatino, is no stranger to improv. When they decided to direct this show together, they agreed to try something new for a change, Sabatino said.

“We thought that it would be something really interesting to experiment with and try,” he said.

The cast spent weeks trying to develop a theme for the show, until it settled upon the concept of having the audience create a movie for the actors to perform. For each “movie,” the cast divides into teams of two. Half of them become the actors in the film. The other half of the performers become members of the production staff, such as a props person and a director’s assistant, Sabatino said.

“We get up there and we have no ideas,” he said. “We get every element of the plot from the audience and it’s the actor’s job to make sense of it.”

Many elements of short-form have been integrated into the show. According to Vogel, an actor portraying the director’s assistant often will interrupt the scene to suggest improv games that are more familiar to the audience.

“They decide which scene would be good with which game,” she said. “If we’re doing a game with three people in it, they might play ‘Sit, Stand, Lean.’”

And while the rehearsal process has certainly been a learning experience, it has not been easy.

For junior Greg Binder, a veteran of improv shows, learning the long-form ropes was a challenge.

“In the other shows, you wait for your name to be called, did your little short scene, and that was it,” he said. “Now, with long-form, you constantly have to be thinking about the next scene, you constantly have to be listening and you have to do five things at once. It’s very fast-moving and it’s a lot harder, but if you get it right, it’s worth so much more than short-form.”

For Vogel, it’s all about listening. Actors have to keep in mind “names, relationships, plots, places [and] scenes you already did,” she said.

“You have to keep all the details inside of your head,” she said. “And you’re trying to figure out which way it’s going to go, what’s going to work, what’s not going to work.”

As the shows approach, Egan feels the cast is more than ready. After all, they’ve played characters “ranging from lobsters to crayons to farm equipment [to] various animals,” he said.

“You can think outside the box a little bit and create an entire world that you can’t create in short-form in just one game,” he said. “I think the audience is going to like how we can take an idea that seems pretty straightforward and throw a different twist on it.”

The Moving Picture Show will be performed tonight at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 2, at 10:30 p.m. and midnight. All shows are $5 and will be performed in the Spitz Studio Theater.