“My girlfriend left me, its time to turn off my switch forever and ever!” Nate Flagg ’07 belts out the improvised “emo” lyrics while Rosie DuPont ’06 applies on black lipstick and Sean Beckett ’08 squirms on the floor in agony. Sounds like the Panic in the Disco music video? Even better – it’s Under the Bed, Andover’s very own improv troupe. Last Friday, UTB welcomed Andover back to spring term with a hysterical evening performance. Studnets laughed at the hilarious concoctions of the dynamic crew of Emma Dorsey ’06, Ben Lasman ’06, Osei Wilks ’08, Nico Hargreaves-Heald ’08, DuPont, Beckett, and Flagg. Despite performing on the eve of April Fool’s Day, the team did not play any tricks, getting directly to business with their usual set of five improv games. The highlight of the night was the “Genre Switch” game. DuPont, Flagg, Beckett, and Lasman, brought the house down in their transformations of the same scene from “espionage” to “emo,” and “epic poetry” to “Lifetime movie.” The group began as mysterious undercover agents and became miserable love deprived teenagers. Soon afterwards, Beckett, who must have been reading Romeo and Juliet, charmed DuPont with, “Blue is the color of her eyes, red the color of her lips” to which she replied, “but I am Asian.” Danny Silk ’07 praised the show, saying, “it was great to see their variety and range,” and Andrew Yankes ’08 added, “I was in tears!” UTB also performed a new act called, “The Bazooka Joe Game.” Bazooka Joe is a comic book series filled with terrible jokes. Hence, the point of the game was to mock these lame attempts at humor. Unfortunately, UTB’s Bazooka Joe jokes were not much better. Hargreaves-Heald asked, “What did the bagel say to the elephant?” and Wilks replied with “Lets Bruegger it up!” The joke was amusing, but didn’t make any sense to the audience. Murphy Temple ’08, a big fan of UTB, admitted that “their shows in the beginning of the year were better because this time they seemed to lack experience in some of the games. It wasn’t their worst, but wasn’t their best.” However, UTB displayed courage as well, taking chances and never playing it safe. As Dorsey put it, “People can’t come to an improv show expecting to see polished theater. The charm of improv is that it’s not polished; it’s not what you expect. We’ve got to delight in mistakes, slips of the tongue, and brilliant puns alike. That’s improv… a moment in which anything could happen and the excitement of seeing what does.” UTB has more performances in store for the Spring Term. Among other things, the group is planning an intense 12-hour marathon to support the Eco-Action group, in addition to many more exciting shows. Get pumped.
