Student comedy troupe Runnin’ with Scissors is at it again tonight on the McComas Hall Theatre main stage, but with a new arsenal of impov and sketch comedy and an entirely new theme.
“The theme of the show is Vaudeville,” Runnin’ With Scissors manager Houston Longino said. “One of the new things we’re doing this semester is having a member of the group run their whole vision of the show, and give it a specific theme, which is something we’ve never done before. It’s always been kind of random.”
Vaudeville, the early 20th century slapstick-comedy style that made comedy legends like Charlie Chaplin famous, should be an exciting new direction.
“We picked [Vaudeville] because it does have our improv, and it does have our sketch comedy, and it has a little bit of standup comedy, but it’s also musical,” sketch director Dustin Lefors said. “So basically we’re putting on a talent show of our performers. We don’t just do comedy.”
Friday night’s performance should appeal to a very wide variety of tastes, and some new and interesting material will be introduced.
“There’s going to be some serious drama, and there’s going to be some songs sung,” Lefors said. “A little bit of dancing and a little bit of craziness. Myself and a friend of mine are trying to write a musical, and we’re going to debut two or three of the songs.”
Fans of the usual Runnin’ with Scissors’ “Whose Line is it Anyway” meets “Saturday Night Live”-style needn’t be worried. Plenty of the old formula will be present, including new sketches and a new improv game.
“It’s called the bucket game,” Longino said. “It’s an improv game where two people do a scene while one of the cast members has their head in a fish tank full of water, so they can’t hear what the other two people are saying. They stay in there until they run out of breath, then they raise their hand and switch places with one of the people, and they have to continue the scene without knowing what it’s about with their head soaking wet.”
“We write all our sketches,” Longino said. “We actually have one that has to do with ‘Dracula.’ The National Players came here and they did a version of [the play], so I’m going to rewrite a little of ours to line up with theirs. ”
“I’m in the ‘Dracula’ sketch called ‘Dracula’s Date,’ and I’m the date,” RWS member Kathleen Maher said. “It’s really funny, and it’s going to be good. There’s a lot of really good creative ideas [in the show].”
Many of the sketches will be heavily influenced by the Vaudeville theme.
“I wanted everything to be kind of slapstick,” Lefors said. “Very big, very crazy. We have a repertoire of sketches written over the past few years, and I just went through and found everything that you could add big motions to.”
The troupe intends to take over not only the stage, but also the entire theater. They want to make the audience feel like part of the show.
“We’re going to really encourage audience participation.” Longino said. “We want to get people to get up on stage, cheer or boo if they want to.”
Normally the group is in the small lab theater that seats about 88 people. Longino said they consistently sell the place out and have to turn people away a lot of the time.
“Anytime we get the main stage, we really like to make it worthwhile in the hope that we’ll get as many people in there to see us as possible,” he said. “This show is going to be all over the main stage. We’re going to have people in the audience that get up and do things. We’re going to have people on the high balcony yelling stuff. We’re even going to have people in the light room opening the windows and yelling down to the stage.”
Runnin’ with Scissors takes the stage at 7:30 tonight at the McComas Hall main stage. Tickets are $5 at the door.
Longino suggested that people arrive early to get a good seat.
“It should be a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s going to be the most ambitious thing we’ve done so far.”