Only going for two nights but still cracking jokes in a magical fashion, the MTHS Theatre Sports team performed their comedy improv night on Friday, April 3 and Saturday, April 4 at 7 p.m. in the MTHS theater. The team goes by the name “Ten Stories Tall” and has competed earlier this school year against theatre sports teams from other Washington high schools.
For this years comedy night, the theme was “fairytale” and featured many Disney inspired skits alongside periodic intervals of the usual games they perform. There were highs and lows for the night, with some jokes coming off as peculiar and others as simply hilarious, but overall a strong night for Ten Stories Tall.
“Phenomenal. [The performance] was good, we went out there and did the best that we could with what we had and we made it happen,” junior Sage Cameron said.
The night began with a dating game, featuring Cameron as the lucky guy who was to ask questions and then select from one of three female contestants, each a character from a fairytale as suggested by the audience. After picking Mikayla French (the Big Bad Wolf) they were sent off on an “all expense paid trip to Brier, Washington.”
Ten Stories Tall then went into one of their classic skits, this one being “Should’ve said.” The rules were that every time a person set off to the side were to clap, the player currently speaking had to instantly change their statement, causing all the more improvisation.
Also, throughout the show, the theatre sports team performed “After Happily Ever After” themed skits, involving their comical renditions of what might have become after the happy endings of many different Disney stories. One of the best included a pregnant Little Mermaid, which ended with Prince Eric declaring “I liked you better when you couldn’t speak!”
All the scenes had to be prepared accordingly, which was not an easy task. That, coupled with practice, amounted to a few hours of work after school each day since about mid-Feb.
“We had to learn how to write our own scenes, while including improv in there and having the element of surprise,” senior Danielle Hirano said.
The plethora of skits and games continued, with intervals of a mythical storyline where Snow White was being hunted by an evil brute, but the more favored skits tended to be the usual theatre sports ones. Everything from tag team monologue to scenes from a pocket and of course, late to work, a big fan favorite. Each game stayed original and funny while as always, taking audience suggestions.
The night finished up with a game called “pop up storybook,” and concluded with a bow from all nine members of the theatre sports team.
Having a fairytale theme for this year was more off the wall than past years, but still delivered.
“I didn’t like the theme going into it… I played sports when I was I child, [but] as I got to perform it, I honestly adapted more to it [and] started to like it more,” junior Tyler Grabarczyk said.
Theatre sports auditions will be coming up in early June, and the MTHS drama department’s next and last production of the year will be “And Then They Came For Me,” a play about Anne Frank’s friends after the Holocaust.
