Ronald McDonald, Harry Potter, Simba and Carlos Hoyt all made an appearance at Under the Bed’s improvisation comedy show last Saturday night in Steinbach Theatre.
Under the Bed is Andover’s student improvisational comedy theatre troupe, comprised of seniors Ceylon Auguste-Nelson, Margaret Curtis, Miranda Haymon, Ben Romero, Andrew Schlager and Uday Singh, and uppers Pearson Goodman, Hemang Kaul, Patrick Naughter and Brendan O’Connell.
Like the typical Under the Bed show, the improvisation sketches in the Saturday’s show were spawned from six “games” or general activity categories.
The first game “No You Didn’t,” featured Goodman, Romero and Schlager. In “No You Didn’t” Haymon served as a caller and yelled “No You Didn’t” when she felt the cast could be funnier, making them improvise and change the scene.
At the end of the scene, Romero struck a series of exaggerated poses, pretending to be a drawing model, while Haymon continuously yelled “No You Didn’t.”
After flailing on the ground assuming different positions, Romero posed with an overly dramatic face as Schlager jumped on him.
“I ended up assuming a Jersey-shore-esque pose with Andrew on top of me,” said Romero in an email to The Phillipian, “The game ended on a really high note which is really important.”
In another game “Forward and Reverse,” the cast was able to control the scene like a remote control that had the ability to fast-forward or rewind the scene. The audience gave the prompt of “The Lion King” for the game.
The cast for this game, comprised of Haymon, Naughter and O’Connell, initially jumped and tumbled on stage, improvising fight scenes as lions from the film. As the caller yelled “forward” or “reverse,” the trio would crash and roll to the ground rowdily.
Haymon hilariously took the game to the next level when she began to yell the iconic African Zulu words of “The Circle of Life” from “The Lion King.”
Instead of just chanting the words, she improvised her own translation of the words, and accompanied the Zulu with phrases like “What are you doing in my house, get out of my house,” drawing huge laughs from the audience.
“It was a good combination between speaking funny and moving funny. The way that the actions and the words played together worked really well was just funny,” said Josselyn De Leon ’13.
In another game, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” which featured Curtis, Goodman and Kaul, the cast members had to guess what popular figure or character they were, which was determined by the audience.
Sitting in a dinner table setting, the cast members were also responsible for giving hints to others, in addition to guessing their own identities.
Witty phrases relating to meals and drinks to order, satirical comments about attire and other humorous comments helped the cast members figure out their identities.
Having the talk heavily centered on the topic of fast foods, Curtis initially incorrectly guessed that she was McDonald’s Hamburglar, but quickly realized she was in fact Ronald McDonald.
Phrases relating to Andover and All School Meetings helped Goodman realize he was Carlos Hoyt, Associate Dean of Students.
Kaul was the first to figure out his identity as Harry Potter, and he clutched his head with his hands as a sign, as the audience laughed heartily.
Emmie Avvakumova ’14 said, “I found it incredible how they make up so much stuff on the spot and how well trained they are that [Kaul] got it so quickly. There were a lot of clues but I think it’s hard to figure out something like [an identity] so quickly, especially when you have such a big pressure on you.”
With comical improvisation and clever spontaneity, Under the Bed provided an exceptionally entertaining and successful show.
For three of the troupe members. Naughter, O’Connell and Romero, Saturday’s show was their first performance as part of the Under the Bed.
“[The show] was scary at first but once it got going, I found it to be a lot of fun,” said O’Connell in an email to The Phillipian, “The returners did a great job guiding us new guys.”
Romero said about his first experience in Under the Bed, “I love Under the Bed. It’s a great group of kids who all happen to be hilarious, and when we’re all together, it’s always entertaining.”
“The show was packed, so I was a bit nervous at first. After the first sketch about the Freeman though, it felt pretty natural. People wanted to laugh and the audience responded pretty well to everything we did,” he continued.
Under the Bed crew plans to perform their next show on Saturday, February 4.
