The members of OU Improv rehearse for their first-ever musical show.
On a dismally cold Sunday evening in February, a handful of members of Ohio University’s student-run improv troupe, OU Improv, gather in an empty studio in Kantner Hall to rehearse.
“Rehearse” isn’t really the right word. “Prepare” or “exercise” might better describe their work. Their art is one of spontaneity – they operate without scripts or a defined direction. The loosely-linked sketches they perform tonight will be created out of thin air and will never exist in the same form again. That impermanence is helpful consolation when a joke falls flat, but it demands a degree of on-the-spot creativity that can be kind of terrifying.
Tonight’s exercise-prep is in service of the group’s upcoming musical show – an hour of improv that will be set entirely to music. The group enlisted senior Shawn Grindle to be their accompanist, and he sits at the upright piano in the corner now, making a list of musical genres that he’ll play underneath the group’s lyrical stylings.
The mismatched collection of improvisors – seniors Emilee Copus and Sarah Hess, juniors Sam Stefanak and Luke Null, and sophomores Kyle Miller, Cat Abood and Patrick White – have volunteered to be part of this show. They’re cobbled together from OU Improv’s two separate-but-equal troupes, Amsterdarn Alliterates and Black Sheep, Inc.
“It’s not like a JV vs. varsity sort of thing,” stresses organization president Copus.
Amsterdarn Alliterates opens the group’s traditional Thursday night shows in Mitchell Auditorium with short-form, Who’s Line Is It Anyway?-style bits, and then Black Sheep swoops in with longer, interconnected, character-driven sketches. The musical show will be combination of both styles.
After a little while spent tuning instruments and sorting out the logistics of future rehearsals, the group launches into their prepared set list. They use a cluster of chairs along the far wall of the studio as a makeshift audience. There are moments of brilliance in the material they invent: A clever turn of phrase lands satisfyingly on the perfect piano chord, and a random bit of physical comedy launches a lagging sketch into an entirely new, hilarious direction. There’s lots of so-so material, too, and the occasional cringe-worthy pun. But even when – especially when – things don’t work or sound quite right, the group keeps moving, on to the next verse or next line or next sketch.
OU Improv graciously allowed me to document the rehearsal process leading up to the musical extravaganza. Check out the video below!
