One of IU’s student improvisation and sketch groups, Midnight Snack Comedy, put on its second-to-last performance of the semester at the Georgian Room in the Indiana Memorial Union to a full ?audience.
Griffin Leeds, IU senior and co-president of the group, also an Indiana Daily Student columnist, said one of the main reasons the group puts on these performances is to create and showcase an entertaining outlet for people to enjoy.
“Midnight Snack is one of the many fantastic comedy groups found on campus,” Leeds said. “IU is very fortunate that it has a vast and diverse comedy community. We have seven comedy groups here with different style and types of comedic acts.”
Midnight Snack Comedy started in February 2010 to provide training for aspiring comedians, according to the group’s website. It primarily focuses on short and long forms of improv acting and does so through a variety of games, sketches and improvisational situations.
“With improv there’s nothing you can expect as actors or audience members since it’s all made up on the spot,” Leeds said. “You can just expect to enjoy the show.”
The show consisted of separate interactive segments where members of the group split up and made up acts on the spot without any preparation or script.
Occasionally the actors would take suggestions for characters, topics and situations from audience members.
There were specific performances, such as a segment called “Survivor,” where four members continuously put on the same act four times, with one person being voted off each time until there was one last person standing.
The show ended with a long-form segment. Each member of the group came together and performed a montage of scenes based on a suggested topic from the audience.
The show was emceed by Blair Heidenreich, who performed standup comedic acts throughout the show along with Leeds. They periodically crafted jokes pertaining to campus life.
The group was founded in 2010, initially as an outlet for showcasing various comedic talent for aspiring comedians.
However, after numerous performances, it became one of many recognized student comedy troupes on campus.
“Shows are a very regular thing we do, that is every other weekend, with each show having a similar structure to each other,” Leeds said. “Our main purpose is to entertain and leave people walking away feeling like they had a good time.”
