Improvisation group Awkward Silence kept their audience anything but silent last Friday, Oct. 1st, during their first show of the school year. Although they had to perform in an unusual place, a classroom in Cowell, the arrangement worked to their benefit, since the raked seating allowed everyone, even those in the back to see the hilarity. After every quick pun or sidesplitting political reference, the audience burst into laughter. They knew what they were in for as soon as they read the white board, which said, “This is your brain…on us” positioned next to a picture of a swirling spiral.
By performing short-style improv games such as “Blind Date” and “Beastie Boy Rap,” the show ran at a fast pace as the jokes kept flying. The eleven members of the team are Eddie Harrison, Matt Cline, Amber Dennis, Laura Waldron, Ben Cohn, Dana Robbie, Lauren Bellenie, Katherine Bliss, Dylan Wittrock, Lisa Nelson and Lizzie Guerra, the newest members being Lauren, Dylan, Katherine and Lizzie. As a team they delivered fresh laughs and entertainment worthy of a college student’s Friday night.
They began with the game “Try That On For Size” where one person does the motions to an everyday activity and then the other person keeps doing the motion, but changes the action. For example, one of the highlights of the game was when the motion was blowing a balloon and Cohn put an imaginary balloon against his lips and said, “I’m giving mouth to mouth to a gerbil.” Of course the audience exploded into laughter. One thing that is great about Awkward Silence is the way they can make simple everyday actions hysterical. This is not to say that they cannot make the bizarre or the dirty just as amusing.
In fact, the next game they played was called “Debate,” and the topic was cheese. Bizarre enough? Each person would debate his or her point and if another player thought it was void, the player would call a challenge. Laura Waldron made her point and said, “Normally you would milk a cow first,” but was swiftly challenged by Cline who argued, “Goat cheese.” This simple game stirred the audience to the point where all laughter was high-pitched and uncontrollable.
My favorite game would have to be the “Ding Ding” game. Featured on improv shows such as “Whose Line is it Anyway?”, one person starts a scene and another person, acting as God, calls out “Ding Ding” to switch their action. This means that the player has to be constantly on her toes because shenever knows when the action will be changed. It was not so much the actual game that made this part of the show funny, but the scene that they created together right out of thin air.
Robbie’s character especially gathered laughs out of the audience when attacking Justin Bieber after he denied her a lock of his hair. She said, “This is a bazooka, Mr. Bieber and I’m not afraid to use it.”
Another highlight would be the “Beastie Rap” game when two different teams were trying to rhyme things with “Clap,” and Waldron said, “I’m going to get a smear, it’s called a…” and only Cline answered proudly, “pap!” The whole room burst into laughter at the undeniable awkwardness of a male shouting about a medical procedure for strictly females, and at lightning speed, too.
Of course, it would not be an Awkward Silence show without its traditional ending. The game “Sex is like” adds the perfect ending to a night of entertainment formed around what the average college student finds funny, this game being the cherry on top. The first comparison began with “Sex is like Mrs. Doubtfire…” and Harrison, who never fails at this game, said, “Last night’s sex is not like Mrs. Doubtfire, because I don’t doubt that fire.” Well, nobody doubted Eddie’s clever choice of words either.
The first Awkward Silence show of the year made for an epic night of laughter. Kelsey Ransick, a USF student who is a frequent attendee to Awkward Silence shows put it best when she said, “Once again, Awkward Silence delivered a great show. They never fail to make the whole room laugh.”
After this premier, there’s no doubt that the rest of the year’s shows will be amazing.
Editor-in-Chief: Heather Spellacy
Chief Copy-Editor: Burke McSwain
Scene Editor: Tamar Kuyumjian
This is an incrediable post. i cant get enough of this
That joke was very hilarious