Comedy troupes perform

Last Friday, four of USC’s improvisation troupes came together to show new students what they can do with a suggestion and comedy chops. The audience chuckled as The Merry Men, Spoiler Alert, Second Nature and Commedus Interruptus played traditional improv games and put on episodic sketches.

The Merry Men, the first group up, played common theatre games. Despite their small size, the group put on an entertaining show. Though Merry Men currently consists only of men, they said they welcome female performers as well.

Spoiler Alert, which has long-form episodic comedy in addition to theatre games, performed next. At a suggestion from the crowd, they put on an “episode” of “Mineshaft,” a horror show featuring characters with wild accents and plenty of phallic jokes. The group finished their set with a game of Blaze, a line game in which a player draws comedia parallels between their gender and an object suggested by the audience.

Second Nature, a quirky troupe, also featured more of a long-form style in their performances.  However, instead of taking a title and a genre for their suggestions, they took three words on Friday: Flip, prep and Arizona.

Last to go was USC’s oldest troupe, Commedus Interruptus. They played  theatre games Four Points and I Like My, to groans from some audience members.

Preliminary auditions for all four of the troupes will take place Sept. 14-15.