By Erica Porter, Staff Writer
The Ogeechee Theatre was full of laughs on Oct. 17 as the Armstrong Masquers Theatre hosted Masquers’ Improv Night.
The Last Laugh improv group provided its attendees with casual, interactive and comical entertainment, along with the opportunity to win a Taco Bell gift card.
With a format much like Whose Line is it Anyway?, The Last Laugh created an atmosphere where the audience felt comfortable enough to shout out scene suggestions and be a part of the performance themselves.
“The audience is just as much a part of the troupe as we are,” Josh Lewis, member of The Laugh Last and director of two previous improv shows said. “Without them there is no show.”
The show opened with an introduction by its director, Kelsey Dabney. As she announced the beginning of the show, the rest of the improv group rose from their seats in the audience, headed toward the stage, and all took out their phones asking everyone to pose for a selfie. This opening established the casual feel of the night.
“I didn’t want people to be uncomfortable,” Dabney said about the show. “Sometimes you’ll see events and people are so nervous.”
The Last Laugh members, which include Kelsey Dabney, Carter Keith, Josh Lewis, TJ Vaughn, Justice Childs, Jared Rogers, and Jonathan Handley, brought their own witty and pun-like humor to a variety of improv games in the show. Some of the games included Film Noir, Press Conference, World’s Worst, and The Letter Change. Each had different rules and an audience-provided scenario.
Because improv requires quick thinking, there is always the risk of not being quick enough or funny. Justice Childs, who’s been doing improv for over a year, explained that Friday night is family friendly night and Saturday night is college night and said, “It’s better when you don’t have stipulations.”
But, The Last Laugh delivered a night of entertainment with a varied group of games and unique comedic members. Carter Keith, who first bore a somewhat shy and nervous demeanor, made the audience last with nearly every joke he made. Students favored The Letter Change and The Dating Game.
The Letter Change game rules required the audience member to choose two letters—“N” and “P”. Josh, Carter, and Jonathan then acted out a scene where they had to replace the letter “N” with the letter “P” in every word they said. The result was comical dialogue where Jonathan’s name became Jonathan. As a definite audience favorite and the game chosen to end the show, The Letter Change game succeeded in leaving us with the last laugh.
