Troupe | Graphic by Emily Lewis | The Wright State Guardian
Students of all majors join the “silliest” club on campus: Troupe. This laidback organization practices improv and acting through games and events.
About the organization
Troupe is designed for non-majors to dip their toes into the waters of acting, improv and theater.
Second-year Mechanical Engineering major Hanna Baker is treasurer of Troupe. Baker joined the group two years ago.
“We do it as a way for those of us that aren’t acting majors to still be able to practice little mini scenes and still stay involved in theater in some shape or form that doesn't take a lot of time out of our already busy schedules,” Baker said.
The improv is often humorous in nature, contributing to a laidback club atmosphere.
Club President and fourth-year Computer Science major Joey Sodergren echoed a similar sentiment to Baker about personal motives in joining.
“As a computer science student, I was saddened to find that at Wright State, many of the creative arts and performance classes are locked to only those majors,” Sodergren said. “And I would have gladly gotten involved with theater or film classes at Wright State as electives because I have past experience in those fields but was barred from doing so.”
Games, improv and fun!
A normal meeting consists of watching clips from improv show “Whose Line is it Anyway?,” screening parts of various comedy movies and playing improv games. A favorite game of the club is “House Party,” as Sodergren explains.
“One person pretends to be hosting a party,” Sodergren said. “We let in three guest who have been assigned weird character quirks, like they're are an exasperated mom, or they are an old World War II veteran, or they're an old mobster, or they are a squirrel, or its a whole group of characters from ‘My Little Pony,’ and the only person who doesn't know who these characters are is the host of the party.”
Thus, the host has to interact with the “guests” to figure out who they all are and once they do, the skit ends.
Troupe allows for the creative freedom of its members. One club member even wrote a parody musical of “Hunger Games,” which Troupe plans to perform soon.
“It's a place where you don’t have to be scared to be silly or ridiculous. No one is going to make fun of you. They’re going to make fun with you,” Baker said.
A recent event titled “Presentation Night” entailed participating members creating powerpoint slides for each other in which the randomly selected presenter has no idea the content of the slides beforehand and must improv their way through the slides. Topics included “People the Presenter Likes!!!” and “Ranking My Favorite Men.”
Members are never required to participate in the improv if they simply wish to sit and watch. The pandemic heavily impacted Troupe’s numbers, but they have now ballooned to between 30 and 40 members with between 20 and 25 attending each week.
The organization meets every Monday from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in Oelman 109 but plans to expand to do more meetings.
Future goals
Baker mentioned wanting to do live improv shows in the future as something that engages with the wider WSU community more.
Sodergren said that many of Troupe’s meetings are informal, but the group would like to expand to more formalized events, such as educational classes on improv and acting.
Troupe plans to advertise more widely, not only for new members but also for the WSU community to come together and watch their performances.
Vice President Dalys Tice encourages anyone to try their hand in the improv world, even if they have a busy schedule.
“What I enjoy most about Troupe is that we truly care about who joins the organization,” Tice said. “I like how understandable and flexible we are with our members. We understand that they are college students because we are too. No one is ever pressured or ‘attacked’ if they have to miss some meetings for school work or jobs. College can be busy. We always encourage anyone who thinks about trying out improv to spend a meeting with us to see how they feel about it. Even if a student chooses to come check us out and just watch, we love an audience.”
