The improv comedy group Casual Thursday will have the chance to take their act to a bigger stage this week. The group, which generally performs in Greek houses and other social venues on campus, will be performing in Bentley Theater on Thursday as part of the theater department’s “Your Space” program that aims to bring non-majors into the Hopkins Center.
The show will incorporate a variety of sketches and comedy forms, group member Drew Zwetchkenbaum ’16 said. Although Casual Thursday works primarily in short-form improv, the group also experiments with written sketches, long-form improv and musical games, he said.
“We pride ourselves on how we try so many different types of performative comedy,” Zwetchkenbaum said. “This show will be a way to showcase all of that range.”
While the group’s shows generally last from 30 to 40 minutes, Thursday’s hour-long show has also forced the group to branch out from their typical routine and incorporate new types of performances, Casual Thursday member Lily Eisner ’18 said.
“It’s a little bit different purely because we have so much more time,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to fill an hour with just short-form improv.”
Zwetchkenbaum said that performing in a theater will have a significantly different atmosphere from Greek house shows. He said that he thinks performing in the new venue will also make the group’s improv seem more professional.
“In a theater it’s quieter, it’s darker,” he said. “Instead of a uniformly lit fraternity or coffee house, there are lights just on the performers, which makes it more dramatic, more intimate in a way.”
Eisner said that she thinks that the theater’s set up would change the interaction between the performers and the audience. When shows are hosted by Greek houses, performers are on the same level as the audience.
“It feels more personal, more interactive,” she said. “On a stage, [the performers] are above you.”
At the same time, she said, students who come to shows in Greek houses are not always as engaged with the performance as a theater audience.
“In a [fraternity] show it’s later at night, it’s a different vibe — people haven’t necessarily come there to watch improv,” she said. “[At Bentley] everyone who is coming to see the show will have come specifically to see us.”
Group member Connor Lehan ’18 said that he is excited about the variety of sketches the group will be able to showcase and the challenge of performing in a theater.
“This will definitely be different, but I think it’s great that we’ll have the time and the resources to incorporate pre-filmed sketches and live sketches,” he said. “I think it will challenge us, and I think it’s just going to be a lot of fun.”
Theater professor Jamie Horton, who directs and selects shows for the program, said that he is excited to have Casual Thursday back with the program, after the group put on a “Your Space” production in January.
The technical benefits of working in a theater will also allow Casual Thursday to incorporate new types of performances, including live music by the student band Some Kind of Jet Pilot during the scene transitions and films that the group created.
Although the movies will be different from live comedy skits, they will still incorporate the spontaneity and creativity of live improv, Zwetchkenbaum said.
“A lot of creating goes on while you’re filming,” he said. “You realize new things based on constraints or accidents that end up being new great ideas and new funny things.”
Zwetchkenbaum, who has been in Casual Thursday since his freshman year, said that working with group has been a formative experience for him.
“I see it source of almost everything good that’s happened to me at school,” he said. “As much as it is a performance group, it’s also just a group of really funny, weird, wonderful, supportive people who want to make each other laugh, want to make audiences laugh, but really care about each other.”
The “Your Space” program is meant to provide a performance venue for students and groups across campus. Horton selects two to three groups to put on a “Your Space” production each term.
In addition to getting a space for their final production, students who receive a “Your Space” production slot have access to the theater for rehearsals and can receive help from faculty members, if needed, as well as advertising help and a $50 production budget. Zwetchkenbaum said that he has been working with theater professor and technical director Scott Silver to work out lighting and other technical aspects of the show.
The show will is at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, in Bentley Theater. Admission will be free.
