The Daily Campus

Issue date: 10/17/07 Section: Focus

Media Credit: Ryan Sayers Comedic Improv Agents James Chapman and Brenna Harvey performed last night at the Student Union in front of an amused audience.

The Agents of Improv dazzled their audience at a free performance last night at the Student Union. "You keep all these keys on a lanyard … do you wear it around your neck … are you a freshman," a member of the Agents of Improv, the UConn comedy group, joked last night as they interviewed a member of the audience. In this improv game they asked for a volunteer in the audience, asked her to surrender her wallet, and then interviewed her about its contents.

"You are an undergrad here, welcome to the club," joked Nicholas J. Carroll, 5th-semester psychology major.

According to the UConn Web site, the Agents of Improv are a comedy troupe of players dedicated to fostering a sense of fun in the audience and themselves. They achieved their goal last night in the student union, where they performed to the crowd for over an hour. Laughter could often be heard through the theater, and never out of obligation. Highlighting the show was the hilarious dynamic of Dan Emmons, 3rd-semester electrical engineering major, and Brenna Harvey, a 3rd-semester English and fine arts major.

For the ending skit, a group of five agents alternated scenes whose content related to the past scenes, culminating in a dramatic ending. Harvey starred as a sad girl who was socially ostracized after her father implanted a tracking device on her wrist. Emmons played opposite as a rebel anti-tracking device leader. This culminated in a hilarious parody of over-dramatic romance scenes.

Emmons also played an overly-aggressive man who threatened to shoot everybody, while Harvey played his wife. When another agent claimed that cookies made her feel warm and fuzzy, Harvey responded with, "That's what guns are for." These situations all connected to each other, along with others scenes, such as a random musical.

"Its needs to razzle dazzle, I know it's a musical about the Great Depression, but you can only be so depressed in a musical," Carroll explained to the audience.

The beginning of the show focused more on one liners and quick humor. In these games participants had to follow ridiculous rules. In one game one member had to be sitting, one standing and one leaning at any given moment. In another sketch, one member acted, as the other made sound effects. In a third, participants switched roles every couple of lines. These games made boring subjects such as the potato market amusing, and the farfetched, such as a frankenstein-esque super cow hilarious.

"Do we need to jumpstart it somehow?" asked one actor about the cow.

"No, I think we just have to milk it," said another agent.

"I thought they were all really witty," said Pooja Perepa, a 1st-semester English major. "It's amazing that they can come up with hilarious lines off the top of their head, it was an incredible show."

The campus can look forward to many more performances by the Agents, because the best thing about improvisation is that "You know you'll never see the same show twice," Perepa said.



Contact Rachel Madariaga at Rachel.Madariaga@UConn.edu.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools