{"id":29695,"date":"2024-01-22T01:32:46","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T06:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=29695"},"modified":"2024-01-22T15:50:47","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T20:50:47","slug":"comedy-is-serious-business-for-student-improv-troupe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/comedy-is-serious-business-for-student-improv-troupe\/","title":{"rendered":"Comedy is serious business for student improv troupe"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the first orders of business in any Improvable Cause<\/a> show is to \u201cget the crowd going, get their ideas flowing,\u201d said Tate Denham \u201926, president of the improvisational comedy troupe. It\u2019s an important step, since the crowd will be helping the performers create their scenarios on stage in real time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Improvable Cause members (from left) Brodee Clontz \u201926, William Nix \u201927, John O\u2019Neil \u201925 and Catherine Davis \u2019<\/strong>24 perform.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cImprov is very audience-participatory,\u201d said Denham, an economics and business administration double major. \u201cWe\u2019re always asking for ideas, trying to grab things out of them. And we love to have them on stage sometimes just to mess with them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The troupe might start with a high-energy improv game like \u201cShould Have Said; Make It Bigger,\u201d in which a host standing at the side repeatedly interrupts a scene in progress by prompting the players to immediately revise their last line of dialogue and amplify the action. Or \u201cLate for Work,\u201d which challenges a performer to improvise an excuse for tardiness based on mimed cues from other players.<\/span><\/p>\n

With everything being made up on the fly, improv shows can often seem freewheeling and anarchic. But behind the comedic performances are a set of rules<\/a> that the members of Improvable Cause take very seriously, Denham said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe rule of \u2018Yes, and\u2026\u2019 is obviously one of the most important,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very simple process of adding on to a joke. You say, \u2018Yes, that is real in the scene. And further, this is also real in the scene.\u2019 It opens your mind up, and it leads to more thoughtful, developed jokes that can cause someone to almost vomit from laughing, which I\u2019ve seen happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

All (or most) joking aside, since the troupe\u2019s founding in 1997, the rotating membership of Improvable Cause has been learning skills that will endure long after stepping offstage, said faculty advisor Ruth Aronoff, an associate professor of Earth sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of the most flexible and transferable skills that anyone can develop for any kind of workplace or interpersonal setting,\u201d she said. \u201cThe rules of improv help you think about how to navigate situations that are new to you and how to approach interacting with a new person or group.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Improvable Cause troupe president Tate Denham \u201926 (standing) and troupe member Ella Boone \u201827 work out a scene.<\/p><\/div>\n

Directly engaging in meaningful experiences such as Improvable Cause fits well within the ethos of The Furman Advantag<\/a>e, an educational framework that provides every student an individualized educational pathway and opportunities for high-impact learning experiences, said Aronoff.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It’s not all about the laughs, either.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s sometimes not obvious when you\u2019re watching improv is that the determining skill for whether you\u2019ll be a gifted improviser is not how funny you are,\u201d Aronoff said. \u201cIt\u2019s really about how well you can actively listen, because audiences are totally blown away by the ability to really connect with the other people on stage with you. And that kind of active listening is the key to being able to engage meaningfully in the types of experiences that The Furman Advantage provides.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A performer in Greenville\u2019s Alchemy Comedy Theater and former student of renowned groups Second City and UCB, Aronoff has seen many post-collegiate young professionals enter improv classes to boost their workplace communication skills. <\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving that skill set already under their belts is going to be such a big leg up for our students,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are a lot of professions where you can draw directly on those skills.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Improvable Cause will perform in Burgiss Theater in the Trone Student Center at 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 26.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The members of Improvable Cause get laughs while honing skills they can use in the workplace and a host of other offstage settings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":29716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,61,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-life","category-the-furman-advantage","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}