Audiences usually sit and cheer as they watch a carefully prepared and scripted show from their seats. When the BYU-Idaho Comic Frenzy team is on stage, however, the audience controls the show.
Comic Frenzy is a student-led improv group that performs comedy skits and shows purely based off audience suggestions that are given on the spot. The team asks for audience ideas, and then the comedians have to act out an entire scene, sometimes multiple minutes long, based off whatever random word or idea was just given to them moments ago.
Glen Bowler, the team leader for Comic Frenzy, says the cast prepares for whatever the audience has in store for them.
“Something we do that’s really fun is called an ideation,” Bowler said. “We take a word and pick it apart. We talk about the themes that are inside that word. We do word association for it sometimes. We talk about our life experiences with that word, and then we turn it into a scene.”
Despite the many wild and random ideas the audience sometimes offers, Bowler says the team has never been unable to figure out how to act out a single suggestion.
“We can always find something in a word,” Bowler said. “Everyone on the team has unique life experiences and we can pull from those different experiences to tell truth. We’re about telling truth about words and experiences and having fun at the same time.”
Around 40 students will come to audition for the Comic Frenzy team each semester, and some have never had any theatre or acting experience. Students from all majors, whether it be Construction Management or Computer Science, are encouraged to try it out.
“Some people are afraid,” Bowler. “They think it’s fun, but they’re afraid of being embarrassed. There’s no judgement. We take so many people from different majors. It doesn’t matter to us if you’ve never done theatre before. If you think it’s fun, come on out and give it a shot.”
As for the audience, Bowler says people might relate more to the show than they would expect.
“You might learn something about yourself,” Bowler said. “You might see yourself in a scene and be like ‘that happens to me all the time, I totally get that!’, and things like that.”
Comic Frenzy is this Saturday with two showtimes at 7 and 9 p.m. in the Snow 105. Admission is free. They will have their final shows of the semester on Dec. 15 at 5 p.m.