Troupe Logo | Graphic from @wsu_troupe social media
In Troupe, students can experience improvisation-based games in a welcoming environment to live out theater driven ambitions without the pressure of rehearsals and lines.
What to expect
Troupe is a theater organization where students can take a break from the stress of daily schedules and experience stepping into a different pair of shoes.
“Our goal is to bring improv theater and performing arts to any student and build that kind of community with them because not everybody has time necessarily to go out and try out for a full play,” Treasurer Ella Stevens said.
Students who have prior experience, and even those who are just starting out or want to get into acting and performing, are welcome to try it out, according to President Ben Harshbarger.
The group operates in a strictly no-judgment area where students can become somebody else and leap from comfort zones.
“[Troupe] allows people the opportunity to get into theater who otherwise would not have had the opportunity to,” Vice President Lindsey Shaffer said.
How to get involved
There are no prerequisites or qualifications to join the organization, according to Harshbarger.
“It’s one of the few places [where] there is no judgment, like, you can come as you are. You don’t even have to do the improv, you can just come and watch and just kind of socialize,” Harshbarger said.
Troupe plays a variety of games including Actor Swap, where three people perform a scene and randomly swap roles and continue the improv, or Sales Pitch, where the actor must pitch and sell an item that is less than ideal, like an empty water bottle, according to Stevens.
“We have people who have never done improv in their life get up there and rock it, and it’s that kind of confidence [that] just exudes from the stage to you, and it makes you want to get up there,” Shaffer said.
Troupe’s goals
According to Stevens, the group wants students to have fun, meet people and make friends. Harshbarger also mentioned Troupe’s tagline: ‘Theater without the drama.’
The group hopes to expand its membership and get its name out to those who are in search of a spotlight that is not too demanding.
“The end goal, I would say for the group, is to just continue growing, to get our name out there and get people to not be intimidated by improv,” Shaffer said.
The group meets every Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Oelman 109 and is open to all years and majors, according to Shaffer.
