Last Wednesday night, Lindsay Auditorium welcomed back Skintight Outrage, the University of Denver’s improv group. Although it was their first performance of the year, members showed no nerves.
“We know that we’re pretty electric, so we weren’t worried at all,” said senior Jack Schuchard.
The team took the stage by storm, opening with a game called Freeze. In this game, performers act out a skit until a teammate calls “Freeze,” taps one player out and shifts the scene in a new direction.
An audience suggestion of “tooth fairy” kicked off the round, with sophomores Ryan Wilson and Zoe Weisenfluh pretending to trade teeth onstage. Each member had a chance to tap in. Teeth turned into swords, and swords morphed into hula hoops before the bell rang signaling the game had ended.
The group then transitioned to Four Square. Four members stayed onstage, improvising skits based on audience suggestions of “generator,” “Hogwarts,” “traffic cone” and “run-down city.” Each skit was performed in pairs, with players challenged to switch scenes mid-sentence.
One skit, based on the word “generator,” ended with the sentence “Crank that thang.” That line was picked up in the Hogwarts skit, where Schuchard and Weisenfluh played Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, who were just caught smoking by Snape. The pair soon broke out into a rap, which successfully drove the professor off.
Next up was Fairy Tale, where Ryan Bouchard narrated a story while teammates acted it out. That was followed by the game Lost in the Woods, set at Spirit Halloween, suggested by the audience. In this game, whenever a performer said a crowd-suggested word like “boo,” “werewolf” or “pumpkin” the crowd shouted “die,” and the member dropped to the ground.
Within the first minute, nearly all members had dropped, leaving senior Cady Pyron to finish the skit alone before finally “dying” when the word “werewolf” was said.
Members Trevor Dahler, Jake Henry and Bouchard then took the stage for the game Ding-Switch-a-Roo, where the ring of a bell forced members to swap characters mid-scene. The skit is what prompted a fight scene between Dahler and Henry.
“There was this awesome moment when we knew we were about to fight,” Dahler said. “We looked at each other and laughed, like, ‘Alright, let’s do this.’”
“We all brought what we expected of each other, “ said Henry, reflecting on the scene.
The group closed the night with Double Entendre. Audience one word suggestions prompted a series of sex jokes before the final bell was rung.
The team will continue to host shows every Wednesday night and encourage the DU community to be on the look out for upcoming workshops and auditions via their Instagram.
