Douglass Dowty: How are you guys feeling about the performance tommorrow?

Leah Patriarco: Well, we have a lot of games that are totally different from the games we played last year, and I’m real ly excited about that. Um… I’m so articulate… I feel like the games are…I don’t know, I just like them more. We try and change games for every show, but these are a little different.

DD: I know that there are a lot of groups putting stuff up this weekend. You have Piscapo’s Arm [Friday at 8 p.m. in the ’Sco]. How do you make yourselves unique?

Susan Seidelman. We will destroy the opposition! (laughter) Don’t print that! No, no, no! Don’t! We don’t want…

DD: It’s all taken in good fun.

Adam Czernikowski: We don’t actually have a time conflict with the other group. People could go from Piscapo’s Arm straight to our show.

LP. We have a lot of similar fans.

Owen Poindexter: Yes, of course. And our styles are completely different. So like… they do sketch, so it’s all written and we do improv. But even from the other improv group [Sunshine Scouts], we do different formats, different styles.

SS: Yeah, if I could just elaborate on what Patriarco was saying, I, too, am very excited about the business this semester, because I think in the world of improv everything is very set stylistically, like this is what we do — we’re long-form, we’re short-form — blardy, blardy, blardy. So I think we are trying to move in a direction that starts to connect these…co-mingle [sic] the short and the long forms and most other styles, to do something original, not so rigidly defined so we can like cover a lot of ground.

AC: In the paper, right after co-mingle [sic], we’re going to see a little bracket: “sic.” (laughter)

LP: Long-form and short-form and everything else will get it on in the show…

SS: Yeah, by the way, isn’t it amazing the only boy in the group I haven’t made out with is Lee?

AC: When did you make out with [troupe member] Baraka [Noel]?

SS: In rehearsal.

AC: Oh, that’s right.

Emile Bokaer: Do you guys think it’s weird how we don’t call any of the new people by their last names?

LP: I don’t think they care about that..

SS: We always call each other by our last names. But…that’s probably completely uninteresting.

AS: Wait… Yeah, I guess we call you Seidelman sometimes. Yeah, I know I definitely call you Seidelman.

DD: So how you guys prepare for a show? Like… how do you guys rehearse improv?

OP: It’s just like everyone is confused by this, but it’s really not that hard a concept. You just get better at it the more you do it.

LP: You’re rehearsing the skills and specific games, not like the exact scene you are going to do that day.

OP: Every game has certain nuances and you have to work through them to kinda…get them good.

SS: It culminates in a lot of hours being complete wackos together. It’s weird. We have open rehearsals sometimes…we invite whoever to just come and watch.

OP: That’s when we usually end up really sucking.

SS: I think to outsiders it’s somewhere in between like one of the most horrifying and most amusing experiences of their lives. Because we definitely do some very bizarre stuff. It’s all stuff that helps us become more…you know…it’s all about trust. Who you can trust and who you need to take out. (laughter)

AC: I think the weirdest thing I get out of those rehearsals is people watching us during warm-ups. Our warm-ups are pretty whack — it’s doing amazing work.

SS: By whack, he means, like, totally sweet.

AC: Yeah, they are sweet. Yeah, basically it’s energy-building stuff, a lot of focus building stuff, but we do all this crazy jumping around screaming. We practice in North, so a lot of times we get RAs coming in, telling us to be quiet.

OP: We have a lot of people watching us from the window while they smoke.

DD: Do you think you guys have evolved since the group was founded?

SS: The thing is, none of us actually know when the group started.

OP: It’s a different number every time.

LP: I think the style is a lot different than it used to be. I think it used to be a lot more crass…but, I don’t know, that’s just what I’ve heard.

OP: I remember like six years ago they would sometimes take acid before shows.

DD: So you’ve been going at least six years…

SS: I heard that last year it was about 10.

OP: The lowest I’ve heard is eight, the highest is 15. But like, yeah…

SS: What’s the average of that, 12?

OP: This woman who’s coming who was one of the founders of Streak. She could…

AC: Yeah, let’s ask her.

LP: She’s in Cirque de Soleil.

EB: She’s the founder of Streak?

DD: The founder of Streak is in Cirque de Soleil? That’s pretty incredible.

OP: That’s not to say that she founded Streak…

LP: We have no idea.

SS: We don’t know if Streak was ever founded. Maybe it was just born. Today’s theory on Streak: it was born, like a baby.

DD: So if you have all this fun in rehearsal, what do you save for performances?

LP: We have fun. It’s a different kind of fun because you get this like feedback from the audience so… Okay, I really don’t want to use the word “empower”… I can’t think of a different word. But it’s sort of like…

AC: I just really like shows. I feel like something that I’ve said or done that should be funny doesn’t make people laugh, and something that shouldn’t be funny makes people laugh.

OP: Yeah, in shows you’ll get laughs off of things like — I don’t know — things you don’t think at all would be funny. You’ll just be like: “Have some coffee,” and the audience will go nuts. It’s like, okay, just remember to pour more coffee.

SS: Wait…what was your original question?

OP: What we save for shows. We don’t really save anything for shows. It’s just like a show has a different kind of energy because you have hundreds of people laughing.

DD: So do you guys practice so much that you never get thrown for a loop or does that happen up there?

EB: Well, I think the idea is to make the loop into something that’s going on, you know. If you make a mistake, if you say something onstage that is completely bonkers, then everyone else will pick up on that and sort of embrace it.

SS: And also just, in general, in rehearsal and in the shows one thing me and Poindexter sat down at the beginning of the year and went over what are our goals and what we usually try and do is make sure that people are having fun at all times. It’s like…everyone in the group is pretty hard on themselves, and it just is really important to all of us. The thing is, especially in show, if the audience thinks you are having fun, they’re going to have fun. If you’re having a good time and you’re feeling it, it’s just going to be an overall better experience for everyone involved, audience included.

DD: Do you think a lot of what you do is natural and you are bringing it out or do you think a lot of it is learned?

OP: It’s both. It’s like learning how to bring out what’s already in you. You can definitely just take anyone off the street and if they want to learn improv, they can. What you learn is basically how to trust yourself, trust your impulses.

DD: Explain this trust thing a little bit more.

OP: I mean, when people are nervous onstage, and they think they might be able to do something, to say something, to come on as a certain character, then a lot of the time will just reject the first thing that pops into their head. That won’t be good, that it isn’t funny. Whereas really you don’t think about what’s good and what’s funny or what’s going to make the scene work. Sort of like go with your first instinct, trusting your first instinct.

SS: It’s also trusting the other people in the group. It’s like there’s this sort of unspoken…well, ah, spoken agreement that if you are out on stage and you say something like: “God, that is by far the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard fly out of my face,” that doesn’t matter because there are seven other people in the group that are going to get out there and support you, and make it work. That’s one of the things in the group that is so important is the support, that like you’ll always be supported and support others. That’s what makes things happen.

OP: If you do something onstage and you’re like ‘that was stupid’…if you were like, “Argh! Ducks are stampeding on my head” and… (laughter) everyone is like, “What the hell did he just say?” and you look stupid and it’s just like…if everyone makes fun of you for that on stage, which is a lot easier to do than support someone, then they’re selling [you] out, or trying to get a laugh from the audience. I mean, you can probably get a laugh from the audience by saying: “There aren’t ducks in your head, you’re crazy,” but that would probably destroy the scene…and you don’t have to say what the person said is stupid; you can make it brilliant by saying: “Oh no! They’re killing us!” See, now that statement is brilliant. (laughter)

DD: So does your trust in each other and yourself translate into other parts outside of improv?

All: Definitely.

SS: It totally changes…at least for me, my whole outlook on everything, how I interact in any situation.

LP: It totally, completely changes the way I act around anybody.

OP: I think you went through a phase where you took the whole sponteneity thing to an extreme. I basically wouldn’t say something if it had been in my head too long…like just in a normal conversation I would just reject it and say something off the top of my head. But yeah, it definitely changes even, I think, how you act.

AC: Then there are people who, whenever you make a joke, they’re like: “Whoa! That was improv?” (laughter) “No, it was scripted.”

SS: I think people don’t realize that everybody improvises. I mean, we’re improvising right now. I feel like there’s this huge stigma about improv. I guess people automatically believe it is people just being, like, goofy. Just running around being like: “Har! Har! Har!” — punchline — zing! Sometimes improv is like that, I’ve definitely seen “Whose Line is it Anyway?” but I feel the vast majority of America assumes all improvisational comedy is either like stand-up or you need to be on a show hosted by Drew Carey. I think that’s a shame, because I think people close themselves off from a lot of amazing shit.