Armed Farces improv comedy troupe adds variety to repertoire

An illiterate college student is not something often sighted at GCSU, but it is a product of the minds of the Armed Farces Improv Comedy Troupe.

While the Armed Farces are well-known for their Thursday night improv at Blackbird Coffee, they have proven that they can also perform rehearsed pieces. The Armed Farces Variety Show is in its second year and it balances improv with scripted performances. The proceeds from the variety show were donated to Relay for Life.

The skits were interspersed with pre-recorded video clips. The skits served as an outline for the plot, but the performers readily ad libbed between scripted bits.

“(The scripts are) more to give us high points,” said senior environmental science major Patrick Doran. “We can take what was written so it can be different.”

The performers found it to be a definite change working in video rather than live performance. They generated a sizable blooper reel from their video clips.

“Sometimes the funniest moment is when something goes wrong,” said senior business major Alex Marshall.

Senior creative writing major Pam Cunneen wrote several of the pieces, including the skit “The Butterfly and the Ant.”

“(It’s based on) a book I wrote when I was little. I found it in my closet and thought it was horrendous,” Cunneen said.

“The Butterfly and the Ant” centers around a drug-addicted ant and his friend the butterfly. Chaos and comedy ensue when the ant joins a gang and the butterfly intervenes. But as a story written by an 8-year-old often goes, everything turns out well in the end. Images from the original book were projected behind the performers.

Cunneen also wrote “Captain Planet,” a skit where Captain Planet reunites with the former Planeteers, only to find that they have lost their enthusiasm for saving the environment. Steve Holbert plays Captain Planet in this comedic reimagining of the classic TV show.

Skits can take anywhere from two hours to two days to write, Cunneen said. Each skit is first read by the members, and they make suggestions as needed, as sometimes “funny” is a relative term.

“We read them first to make sure they’re funny,” Cunneen said. “We have to think about the audience.”

The audience certainly enjoyed the skits, based on their laughter. The banter between the performers built up to culminate in the punch lines.

“I like to see the building up for scenes. I don’t need to have the best line of the night,” Doran said.

The troupe went back to their improv roots during the intermission by projecting pictures from their childhoods and making fun of them. Through the improv pieces, the Armed Farces ensured that the Thursday night show would be different from the Friday show.

The group spends a lot of time working together and is very much linked by their humor.

“I get to act really goofy and hang out with my friends,” said sophomore art major Britta Gervais.

Posted by Claire Kersey on Apr 16 2010. 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