Various Lisgar Collegiate Institute students make like zombies during a rehearsal for the Canadian Improv Games happening this week.
Picture a competitive improv team from a local high school, standing in front of an audience at the National Arts Centre. The members have been asked to perform a scene, using the suggestion “Republic of Zombia.” They have 15 seconds to plan it.
With that kind of time constraint, every team would take the idea differently.
When Lisgar Collegiate Institute’s team was given the suggestion, it performed a scene about a graveyard town full of zombies, who had eaten all the brains of the surrounding humans, and faced the dilemma of finding more.
The team of eight played eerie music and mimicked limbs falling off. The scene was deemed a success. It got big laughs from the audience and points from the judges.
A series of triumphant scenes such as the zombie one, has landed Lisgar in second place in Ottawa, going into the national championships. Lisgar competed earlier this week against 19 other teams from all over Canada, in hopes of being crowned number one.
The best teams are the teams that can make and accept offers on stage, said Al Connors Ottawa regional director for the Canadian Improv Games.
“There’s a code that teams use, and the code is offers,” he said. “They are what happen underneath what the audience sees.”
An offer is when a team member suggests something to another team member on stage to advance the story. That person can accept the suggestion or reject it.
Connors said when a person rejects an offer, it ruins the scene because it interrupts the flow of the story.
“Sometimes you have to abandon your own brilliant ideas,” said Connors, “and accept what everybody else is doing on stage.”
Evey Hornbeck, a 12th grader from the Lisgar team, said being the lead in the scene isn’t what makes improv exciting. She said each team member plays a crucial role in making the scenes work.
Hornbeck’s team is new this year. All the members from last year have graduated. But that hasn’t stopped the team from being successful, said Kathleen Klassen, the coach.
“You always get that one member who doesn’t understand the commitment,” she said. “But this group, they all just got it.”
Hornbeck said the team is successful because of the high level of energy it brings and its openness to try out different techniques on stage. She attributes that ability to the coach.
“She let’s us try things out, just to see where it goes. She sees the strength of the team and she knows where to take us.”
Even though not all teams have a coach, Connors said the support a coach gives is another part in being successful at improvisation.
While the team is practicing, the coach sits in the audience position to see what works and what doesn’t, said Connors.
“A coach brings work ethic,” he said. “They become a motivation factor.”
For Klassen’s team, a daily dance party to accompany its practice also gets the team inspired to improvise.
So, after an intense boogie session earlier this week, the team hit the stage for its chance at becoming national champions.
The finals for the competition will be on April 15, determining which team has officially mastered the make-it-up-as-you-go art form. But who knows what scenes the night will bring.
It's improv, after all.