Photo courtesy of Jimmy Cork. Left to right: Cork, Silbey, McCann, Moreno, Adolf, Barbuto, Ostrovsky.
If you were lucky enough to score a seat in the packed Olin basement lecture hall on the night of Oct. 8, you witnessed a hilarious show featuring both of Conn’s student improv groups: N2O and Scuds. N2O features members Jimmy Cork ‘22, Tyler Silbey ‘22 and Ana Ostrovsky ‘23 while Scuds features Mia Barbuto ‘22, Juno Moreno ‘22, Wylie McCann ‘23 and Maggie Adolf ‘24. The show was a prelude for their auditions, hosted the day after on Oct. 9, where N2O and Scuds gained four and two new members, respectively.
The Oct. 8 show, titled “Improv Unmatched,” was a real crowd pleaser; at times it was difficult to hear the performers over the audience’s laughter. Amelia Greenwald ‘25, who had never seen an improv show before, said she “really liked the atmosphere of the show and how it felt interactive with the audience.” She added, “All of the members had such great energy which immediately grasped my attention and entertained me the whole time.” Greenwald shared that her favorite part of the show was Moreno’s impersonation of “Giuseppe,” an Italian boy who lost his arm stirring soup, a scene that seemed to be an audience favorite by far.
N2O, named after the chemical formula for nitrous oxide or laughing gas, predates Scuds, which is named after a Russian missile. Because N2O only did short-form improv, Scuds was founded to create a long-form improv troupe at Conn, and the original members graduated in 2004. McCann of Scuds explained that long-form improv “is more about creating a story and circling back to jokes” when compared with short-form improv, which is faster-paced and centered around “contained scenes in the form of games” according to Cork.
Typically, N2O rehearses about three times a week and their goal is to do about three to four shows per semester. This year, the group planned to do their first performance in September, but the Covid-19 outbreak on campus forced them to cancel their planned show. Scuds rehearses roughly twice a week and tries to perform as much as possible (their goal is once or twice a month). Scuds also has performances called “Secret Scuds Shows” that are not advertised like normal shows.
Before Cork auditioned for N2O, his theater background was “very limited” and he had never taken an acting class. However, he was always interested in film and is even a film major at Conn. Cork decided to audition for an improv group at the beginning of his sophomore year partly because he wanted to get involved in more clubs and partly because his friends suggested that he pursue comedy after hearing him tell a really funny story. “Enough people thought I was funny that I auditioned,” Cork shared. The audition was not easy for Cork, especially “coming up with an idea that [he] liked fast enough and being willing to run with that confidently.” Regardless, Cork has valued his time with N2O. He learned to embrace the weirdness of comedy, to not overthink while he is performing, and to “give the audience a thread” that helps them understand the scene.
While McCann “always felt comfortable on stage,” she felt “comedy was something [she] found very scary.” She said there was “something very daunting about having to be the funniest one.” She auditioned for both improv groups in the spring of her sophomore year, mostly because she admired the current Scuds president, Mia Barbuto, who she met during a theater department show her first year. McCann said, “[Barbuto] has the ability to make every person in the room feel connected through humor.” McCann credits improv for helping her “get out of [her] comfort zone” and “feel so much more comfortable as a member of the Conn community.” She expressed, “Sometimes in the rigidity of college life it’s hard to access that fun goofiness…Scuds has helped me embrace those aspects of myself.”
The pandemic presented some challenges for improv at Conn. Cork shared that N2O had put together an “exciting schedule” for the spring of 2020, but only got to do one show before everyone had to return home and quarantine. When students returned in the fall, “nobody had really figured out the best way to approach Covid-19 and performance,” Cork said. N2O met outdoors but was not able to do any performances that semester. In the spring of 2021, however, they got back up and running. This year, while the improv groups can perform, they have to wear masks on stage because they are indoors. “Physical comedy is harder when you can’t use your face,” McCann said, but forced the groups to “learn to be funny in other ways.”.
Of N2O’s four new members this year, three are first-year students: Nadia Hopkins, Leanne Duckett, and Ali Rubin. The fourth new member is Gabe Josephs ‘23. Hopkins, Duckett, and Rubin all have backgrounds in theater and were looking for a fun way to continue doing theater in college while forming valuable friendships. Hopkins and Duckett were inspired to audition for improv after seeing the “Improv Unmatched” show. At the auditions, students had to act in a number of different improv games. Hopkins remembers pretending to be a blueberry farmer in a career game where other students asked questions. Duckett shared that they only felt nervous when they realized how much they wanted to be a part of N2O at the audition. The students who were called back had to do scenes with the current members of the improv groups to test their chemistry.
Hopkins, Duckett, and Rubin look forward to their time rehearsing and performing with N2O. Hopkins sees student improv as a “good way to connect with people” and “practice a muscle that you don’t really have to use a lot, like in your classes.” Duckett is excited about the friendships they will form and thinks improv will be “a good place to go and laugh and hang out.” Rubin anticipates that her experience with improv will help her in non-improv acting as well.
During their rehearsals and shows, N2O and Scuds go through a series of different improv games. Most of the games require topic suggestions from the audience. Cork of N2O said, “Sometimes [the games] work and sometimes they don’t,” because the actors do not know where the suggested topic will take them. “If someone says one thing, you just have to throw everything else away and go with that one thing,” Cork continued. He explained an improv game called “Director,” in which three people perform a scene based on an audience suggestion and one person plays the role of the director, giving the actors notes on the scene and making them do it over and over again. Cork remembers having a lot of fun playing “Director” during one particular show when the suggested topic was “rat spa.”
McCann of Scuds especially enjoys playing “The Monologue Game” one time, in which each actor has a word that was suggested by the audience and one by one, they step forward and create characters based on their different words. The actors have to try to link their stories together while remaining different characters. McCann said once the scene somehow became about a focus group on the movie Zootopia, even though that was unrelated to the original word suggested by the audience.
Scuds’s next show is tentatively Nov. 5 at 9 p.m. in Olin, and N2O’s next show is tentatively Nov. 19. Look out for official announcements in your Conn email, on ConnQuest and on Instagram!
