Late on Monday and Wednesday nights, long after most students have left campus, 13 performers gather in the Indiana Memorial Union to bounce ideas off each other and improve on their comedic timing in order to be fierce competitors at the tenth annual College Improv Tournament nationals.
IU’s longest-running improvisational comedy troupe, Full Frontal Comedy, attended this national competition for the first time in the group’s history.
The group dedicates at least ten hours every week to its craft. The troupe is almost always either hanging out, rehearsing or performing a show, former Indiana Daily Student reporter and FFC member Bridget Murray, junior, said.
“It’s very much not just a time commitment,” Murray said. “It’s not just like an extracurricular activity, but it’s like a friend group and a family.”
On Saturday, FFC members packed their bags for Chicago and headed for the CIT national competition. This was made possible by their win at the CIT regional competition Jan. 28.
Nationals are divided into five sets of three troupes each, organized geographically.
FFC is set to compete in the Midlands Super Regional at 4 p.m. against teams from Kansas State University and Illinois State University. There will be five semifinalists, one from each super regional, and one overall winner.
FFC has been a part of IU’s comedy scene since 1994. The troupe performs once every two weeks in the IMU. Baxter McCory, junior, said the troupe usually has between 150 to 200 people show up at its shows on Friday nights. McCory said he is nervous before every show, but that feeling comes with the territory.
“Improv is scary — it is,” McCory said. “There’s no plan. You just have to do it.”
Each set lasts an hour with three teams performing, giving each team 20 minutes to perform any type of improv it would like.
FFC plans to start its set with some games to get members’ brains pumping, freshman Natalie Kaufmann, said. She said the troupe will do a montage, or long-form improv, because the troupe believes montage is its biggest strength. Kaufmann said the troupe did the same set up at regionals, and it was one of the reasons they swept the competition.
“That was probably my favorite montage I’ve ever been in,” Kaufmann said. “Every scene was just so funny.”
Noah Bousum, sophomore, said he has been on the troupe since fall 2015. He said the main reason the troupe won at regionals was because it was not expecting it. The regional competition was divided into two divisions, and FFC came in second place in its division. FCC was the wild card pick, or the second-place team selected to compete against the two first-place picks, for the semifinals, Bousum said.
“We weren’t expecting anything good, and we won this time,” Bousum said. “So that made it, I think, all the more exciting for us.”
Although the CIT nationals is a competition, Murray said the group doesn’t really view it as a contest. The group ended up coming in third place in their set but was just excited to be invited, she said. Murray said she can’t wait to see how FFC members can use this opportunity to improve their skills and become better comedians.
“It’s not about competition because you’re doing improv, and improv is the least competitive thing ever,” Murray said. “It’s just a good learning experience, a good way to get critiques from people that don’t see you all the time.”
Some members of FFC said they feel as doing comedy has helped them discover where their passions truly lie. Murray said she plans on moving to Los Angeles after graduation to pursue acting. Senior Kyle Gelfand said he plans on moving to Los Angeles at the end of this summer to pursue an acting and writing career, which he hopes involves comedy in some way.
McCory said before he joined FFC in spring 2016, he was a biology major planning on becoming a dentist. Now he is studying media and, like Gelfand, said he wants to move to Los Angeles after he graduates to pursue comedy.
“I’ve gained a whole new spin on what I want to do with my life,” McCory said. “Improv has changed my whole perspective on life, really
