MU senior Ben Prentiss cracks a joke on Friday, Oct. 15, 2021 at the MU Student Center in Columbia. Prentiss was one of nine performers that night.
MU Improv provides live comedy to students and the public every Thursday in The Shack, located in the Student Center.
Club President Ben Prentiss and an executive body manage the live shows and club operations. After securing the location and lighting, the club chooses a new theme for every show.
The theme indicates what the cast will wear and give away to the audience each show. Audience members are encouraged to dress with the theme to promote engagement.
“[The theme] can be very enticing to an audience,” Prentiss said. “There’s not a whole lot of preparation [for] it because it’s improv.”
Members who complete a semester of practices can be officially initiated into the club. The club has an open enrollment, meaning anyone in the student body can join. This draws in a wide variety of students.
“A lot of people think we are all theater majors, but there are people from all different programs,” Prentiss said. “There is no type, it’s just for people who like to perform and have fun.”
Prentiss said new team members who show an effort to improve can participate in live shows. Three out of 12 teams are selected to perform for each show.
“I have a spreadsheet of when each team has performed,” Prentiss said. “We try to make sure each team gets to perform an even amount of times.”
Prentiss also leads the New Kids’ Room, a workshop designed for new members. In these workshops, existing members teach newcomers strategies that improve improv scenes.
“I’m in charge of running the New Kids’ Room. We separate the new kids from the older kids to take things a little slower and teach them the basics of improv,” Prentiss said. “For example, a popular trick is called a ‘yes, and.’ When someone says something in a scene, that information is now a known fact to the characters, and they must add onto that information.”
Tenured members have the opportunity to be a part of a traveling improv team, decided by three members of the executive board. The selected members attend improv festivals at other universities in addition to hosting a festival for other schools and professional teams.
Senior Ella Ilg is an alternate performer for the traveling team. Ilg joined the club in mid-October of her freshman year at MU. By December 2019, she was a full-fledged member. After the pandemic began in March 2020, Ilg said the club started to host meetings and performances via Zoom.
“It gave us a whole year of just shaping up our skills,” Ilg said.
Ilg said club meetings and performances offered her comedic relief throughout stressful times in the semester.
“To give yourself those two hours to relax, not think about school and meet new people was very necessary for me,” Ilg said.
Ilg said she enjoys the confidence boost from the opportunity to perform for others.
“It’s nice to make other people laugh and give other people a good night,” Ilg said.
After each show, the cast gathers at a restaurant or club member’s house for a post-show hangout.
“We try to keep it social because at the end of the day, that’s what the organization is for,” Prentiss said. “Doing improv with people is naturally going to help you get to know a person better. We do some weird stuff and we have that fun bond.”
For more information on future MU Improv performances, visit the club’s Instagram, @mu_improv. Live shows are held every Thursday at 8 p.m. in The Shack.
Edited by Abby Stetina | astetina@themaneater.com