For many people, getting up on a stage without truly knowing what to say is something straight out of a nightmare. For the 11 students who performed in Iwazaru, Choate’s improvisation show, however, it was a situation long sought. During the week of Halloween, Choate students squeezed into the lounge area of the SAC on three different nights for showings of the side-splitting hilarious show, which presented 15 skits. Katie Lee ’18 said, “I was laughing the entire time.”
Auditions for the show were held in the second week of September. As soon casting finished, the actors spent a week getting to know each other. Ms. Carol Jones, the director, stressed the importance of cast member bonding. “In any kind of improv, you want to make sure that you have a good rapport with your ensemble. Once you build that, you can begin to create,” she said.
Besides providing comic relief for stressed-out Choate students, the show was meant to generate excitement about improv and to promote the Improv Club. Ms. Jones, who is the club’s adviser, noted, “The club is here for people who want to try out improv offstage in a safe environment!” She added, “We wanted the show and the club to feed off of one other. We hope that we made improv seem a little less scary.” Iwazaru was the first of it’s kind in quite a few years, as the last show took place in the early 2000s.
Ms. Jones noted that the stage manager, Mia Rubinstein ’18, was an integral part of the show’s success. “She participated in almost every skit off stage, but when it came time to run the show, she would sit down and stage manage.”
The show was, as advertised, “different every night”. Ms. Jones explained that, while the cast followed a rough outline, a lot of the show was improvised. Amy Hagan-Brown ’18, shared her experience with her sketch entitled “Weather,” in which she sang about current weather patterns, explaining, “While I memorized the basic lines, during the pauses I had no choice but make stuff up to fill the silence. If you were to go all three nights, the show would be very different.” Ms. Jones referenced a particular moment in their final showing where whipped cream, a prop in one of their skits, flew across the stage. “It was not supposed to happen, but it was funny.”
Some of the crowd’s favorite sketches included Apple Bra, which described Apple’s newest technology, a bra; Hoe, in which a farmer named Latrice conducts a commercial for different hoes; Day Student vs. Boarder, a scene depicting the difference in campus experiences between the two groups on campus, and Whore Support Group, in which different characters in a group tearfully described their “whore-isms,” examples including a “colorful pants whore” and a “hugging whore.” Some actors also chose to do stand-up, while others opted to improv on stage with Dr. Curtis, who guest-starred in the show. According to the cast, the sketch that Dr. Curtis appeared in, entitled Helping Hands, was almost completely unscripted. “Dr. Curtis was literally making stuff up on the spot,” commented Hagan-Brown.
Quirky and hilarious, Iwazaru brought laughter to the Choate community with the help of its witty and daring cast.
