Armed Farces hold captive audience

The bar fight escalated quickly, and just when things were winding down, the bull rampaged in. That’s exactly how the fight went, at least to hear The Armed Farces Improv troupe tell it.

The actual fight was nowhere near as interesting, but in the game of “Moving Pictures”, the truth is whatever the Farces make the picture out to be. One member draws a picture, based on a story someone from the crowd contributes. Then, the other members have to tell the story from the picture.

“The main goal is not to be funny,” said senior Ian Custar, president of the Armed Farces, in a training session. “It’s not to tell jokes, but to set a scene.”

Funny is as funny does

For the Armed Farces, setting the scene starts several hours before the show at Blackbird Coffee ever begins.

Those participating in the week’s show perform several different warm-up games to get their creative juices flowing and to ease up their bodies.

The Armed Farces held a training session on Sept. 2 for potential new members. Custar spent the first several minutes stressing that the point of improv was not to be funny.
“Funny happens,” Custar said. “Funny comes from the situations, funny happens on it’s own.”

Ben Bradberry, a regular performer with the Armed Farces agreed with Custar.

“It’s not a big deal to be funny; don’t be an ass trying to be,” Bradberry said.

Setting the scene

“The first thing we do is warm up,” Custar said. “Shake it out.”
On that cue, everyone standing in the practice circle started shaking each limb one at a time, ten times each, then nine, then eight and so on.

“Get to looking goofy, looking retarded in front of each other,” Custar said.

Several members of the group stumbled, some made contact with each other as they lost their balance.

“We play full contact, so stay on your toes,” Custar said.
The troupe practiced several other warm up games.

“You need to do these exercises to ‘hang out’ with the games,” Vice President of The Armed Farces Justin Miles said. “Games are just these (warm-ups) with more rules.”

Show time

By the time the members of The Armed Farces arrived on stage on Thursday night, the stage in the basement of Blackbird Coffee was overflowing with people. People sat in the seats, on the floor, on the staircase and some sat on the stage itself.

On the average night, anywhere from five to eight members perform on the stage, doing improvisation games and earning judge approval similar to the show “Whose Line is it Anyway?”
On this particular Thursday, Custar and Miles were performing. They were joined by Ben Bradberry, Drake Simons and John Russell.

They performed about a dozen different improv games throughout the hour. Some were done in teams and some were done individually. Some involved all five players, while some only involved one.

Junior Erin Williams hosted the show and announced the rules of the game, she also introduced the men on stage. She even endured the taunts they tossed at her throughout the show.

“Hosting improv is great because I get to be the mediator between the audience and the players,” Williams said. “I still get to make jokes, but not a lot of pressure is on me. It only gets really stressful when there is a huge audience.”

Beyond the basement

On Sept. 6, the same five members of The Armed Farces that acted at Improv Night traveled to Atlanta to compete in an improv showdown with the members of the JaCKPie Improv Theatre.

“We completely hosed them,” Custar said. “They are a school that teaches improv and we are still the funniest.”

In the competition, they competed in a long-form dramatic scene, which was different from the normal activities on Thursday nights It was a single scene that ran for 15 minutes. The entire scene was improvised.

In the act, Bradberry and Miles acted as their recurring characters Herman Winkleton and Tony the Deuce, who sell products on infomercials. Simons and Russell worked in background roles and Custar served as narrator.

The group is currently organizing an invitational for spring 2009 that plans to invite individuals from the community to compete in a local improv competition. Custar said the group plans to invite the Milledgeville players, students from Baldwin High School and Georgia Military College, as well as anyone else who is interested to compete.

Anyone can do it

The Armed Farces are currently entering their fourth year of operation and are applying for RSO status for the next school year.

Students interested in joining can find The Armed Farces on Facebook and are encouraged to join the group. The group also has a YouTube account where they post videos of some of their performances. Find them on YouTube at www.youtube.com/armedfarcesimprov.

Custar offered advice for anyone who wants to work on their own improv work.

“Find somebody who thinks you’re funny,” Custar said. “Bounce ideas off them. Surround yourself with people you find funny.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 12 2008. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry