On March 4, the New College Football Club, a student improv troupe, held its first performance. “I would call it a huge success,” said the team’s founder first-year Catherine “Cat” Olson. “I didn’t have exact numbers [for attendance], but I think that we were pretty close to the fire code limit as far as the Black Box goes. I definitely think there is an interest in improv at New College.”
The group performed three short improv games — “Blind Line,” “Dance Craze” and “What are you doing?” In “Blind Line,” improv teammates acted out a two to three minute scene and had to incorporate a line selected by the audience from pop culture into their act. In “Dance Craze,” members had to dance to music and freeze when the music stopped. Certain people were asked to stay on stage and then act out a 2-3 minute scene to justify their dance stance.
Olson created the New College Football Club this semester. “It was all self run — I just wanted to have an improv team on campus to put on performances because that was something that I missed from high school,” she said. The club has ten members, practices for two hours every week and plans to have practices that are open to the whole student body. Many of its group members hope to travel to Los Angeles on April 7, 8 and 9 for an improv festival. The club is carrying out fundraisers to help pay for the trip. It hosted the Urban Dictionary Spelling Bee at the Four Winds Café on March 9 and had a kissing booth at the Last Unicorn/Zodiac wall on March 11. The club’s next improv show is scheduled for Friday, March 18.