The improv and sketch comedy group Asinine transformed the historic Fulton debate room, with its wooden engravings and painted ceilings, into a lively comedy club during their Improv Cafe on Thursday night. All the seats were filled and students packed the stairs as the Asinine comedians put on their 40-minute show.
The lights went down as the group kicked the night of comedy off with a brief recorded sketch. Introducing each of the 11 members, the premise of the sketch was to highlight the actors’ various other talents. Stephanie Chamberlain, MCAS ’23, knocked on dorm room doors pretending to sell cauldrons. In his quirky scene, Jack Foulsham, CSOM ’23, climbed the staircases across campus on all four limbs. Quinn Kiernan, co-president of Asinine and MCAS ’22, wore a formal suit as he pretended to be a campus bathroom attendant. Throughout the video, the comedians were shown goofing off while other BC students unknowingly walked by.
The show consisted of a series of improv games involving quick character changes, exaggerated accents, and the occasional sexual innuendo. Margaret Dockrey, co-president of Asinine and MCAS ’22, introduced the first game called “Pan Left, Pan Right.” Four performers lined up while Dockrey asked the audience for a word suggestion to start off the scene’s dialogue. When Dockrey gave a cue, the actors had to change character, jumping around from a surprised new mother to a delusional aspiring clarinet player.
In another game, four of the comedians sat in chairs as they pretended to be radio hosts. Paxton Decker, MCAS ’24, got the crowd laughing as he acted as the host of a Christian rock radio show while singing Black Sabbath. Madelyn Schwartz, MCAS ’24, drew laughs as the fanatical host of a Twilight series show.
Throughout the night, the group impressed the crowd with their quick-wittedness and comic talents. The crowd was laughing all night and when the performers asked for audience suggestions they were met with overwhelmingly enthusiastic shouts from the crowd.
Other members of the group include Gracie Murnane, MCAS ’25, Daniel Strickland, MCAS ’25, Sara Litteken, Lynch ’24, Audrey Davis, MCAS ’23, and Madeleine Bamberger, MCAS ’24.
Another improv game the comedians played involved creating humorous dialogue by going through the alphabet and spitballing sentences that started with the next letter. The group closed out the show with a series of ridiculous scenes that jumped from a character putting their hands into a lobster tank followed by detectives searching for a missing krill to an impression of Steve Irwin, the Australian zookeeper who was also known as “The Crocodile Hunter.”
Last spring, the group, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, was able to host an outdoor, masked performance. But, Thursday night’s rowdy show marked a return to indoor performances for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was so nice to finally have a crowd, especially after COVID, and everyone was so alive,” Bamberger said.
Featured Images by Ikram Ali / Heights Editor
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