Author: Abby Z

The room was just as packed as the last time I had gone to a Comco improv show, thankfully this time my friend and I had arrived a good half hour early and managed to find ourselves decent seats near the front.  The show apparently had 364 people in attendance, so you can only imagine how packed the lecture hall ended up being, but that only added to the lively atmosphere.  The show opened with a short video clip detailing a meeting of the fictional “hookup culture club.”  The video quality was extremely impressive, very reminiscent of the pre-recorded SNL skits that air in between live ones, and it got quite a few laughs from the crowd.  You can watch the the full clip below.

After the video set the mood for the night’s performance, they started with a relatively simple “freeze”-like game, where the actors run in and replace their fellow actors in scenes, changing the scene as they do so.  Very quickly a running gag appeared that would end up resurfacing several times throughout the night.  The joke was that “double frappuchinos” needed to be made with two people. Once again, I was struck with how quick witted and versatile the entire cast is, being able to play off that relatively simple joke in a wide variety of ways.

Another one of my favorite games was where a selection of cast members came up to play various “radio stations,” either real or fictional, all derived from audience suggestions.  For this game the lights are turned off and a single cast member shines a flashlight onto each one of the cast members when it was their turn to speak.  We had a variety of radio stations such as “NPR pets” where a cast member droned on in a dry tone of voice about the various antics of a dog “fluffy,” or the charming musings of “Grandma radio” played by one of the male cast members.

Another one my favorite games the whole night, and one I personally hadn’t seen before, was one where one comco actor was made to guess basic activities, and extreme strange details about those basic activities chosen by the audience, while three other actors who knew the details had to act out the scenes using only non human language. It was interesting to see how the four actors ended up coming up with a similar sounding nonsensical babble that resembled a real language, even coming up with a few words for certain established objects and meanings throughout the course of the game.  While not getting all of the answers right the actor doing the guessing was able to figure out she was doing wild things such as doing laundry with keys instead of detergent with the pope and water skiing in a wedding dress.

At this point a previous cast member who had been sitting in the audience was invited to join them on stage.  Judging by the rousing chorus of cheers from the audience he was well known among the crowd.  After a quick game, they finished the night with what apparently is a Comco tradition, “I like my men like I like my ___.”  for this game the audience would shout out random words and the cast members would have to come up with witty one liners beginning the the aforementioned phrase.  By the time the night was over my cheeks hurt from smiling and I was ready to begin my weekend on the right foot.

Comco’s next performance is March 24th and you can find all the details on their Facebook page here.