written by Heather Fuller and Editor Kriss Perras
The Young Actors Project and The City Of Malibu hosted a Teen Comedy Improv at Malibu City Hall recently. Local youth and teens from the Young Actors Project collaborated with artists from the Westside Comedy Theater, Mission IMPROVable. The night saw a series of Saturday Night Live style comedy sketches.
The comedy troupe was all about creating a night of laughs from whatever the audience told them. This is the goal of Mission IMPROVable. The youth comedy troupe and its mentors interacted with the audience on almost every sketch. They took questions from the audience at the entrance. Then the troupe formed a comedy sketch from each question. Next up was a round of portal tennis formed from interactions with the audience. This was a comedic round of science fiction tennis the troupe ended up naming portal tennis. The laughs kept on coming with a round of olympic coffee making that had the audience in stitches. The improvisation then took a turn toward a game called pan left and pan right. A select group from the troupe formed a circle on the stage. They then turned the circle left or right. They said sentences and formed relationships with each partner they ended up with at the front of the circle. They improvisation ended up with laughs every time from the over the top situations the pair would end up in. They ended the night with improvisations with lines from famous movies. By this point, the young actors had the audience in the palm of their hand. They were laughing at every turn. At one point, the situation on stage had the mentor acting like a zombie dancing. This was so the over the top the laughs were roaring.
As the mentors said on stage, this was a G-rated night of family fun and comedy. The Young Actors Project is an after school acting class and summer program for youth ages 5-18. The Mission IMPROVable Comedy Team is a fast paced form of comedy that is a combination of MTV’s Wild N’ Out and Who’s Line Is It Anyway? but all of this is with a twist. The comedians pretend to be secret agents like in the film Mission Impossible. The troupe gets the audience to yell out suggestions. The impromptu from the audience creates the over the top laughs.
The Young Actors Project performers were as follows:
TEEN: Ashlyn Kunerth, August White, Ava Bradley, Elizabeth Kushner-Stubbs, Lincoln Stibel, Nick Penn, Sky Jacobsen, Tara DeLuca, Zoe Kofsky
YOUTH: Asher Torres, Charlie Wizenberg, Edward Withrow (Sparks), James Walker, Joseph Palmer, Joshua Kofsky, Joaquin Faden, Maverick Costen, Milo Penn, Noah Craig, Victor Welch, Zach Wizenberg.
The Mission IMPROVable Performers: Holly Brown, Patrick McIntyre, Seth Brown.
Young Actors Project Producer and Executive Director: Shoshana Kuttner.
The Young Actors Project is a 501 (c)3 public benefit organization.
On The Web:
http://www.missionimprovable.com