Whose Line is it Anyway?
By Lauren Roesch
On October 29 2014, I went to Whose Line is it Anyway? with some of my friends. The theater club puts on Whose Line multiple times a semester; this was the third or fourth show so far. It is an improvisational comedy show where the actors make up everything on the spot with suggestions from the audience. In front of the theatre, the actors put out a few buckets, one for each of the skits they do throughout the show. Each bucket has directions or a label of the skit so patrons can write their suggestions or lines to use in the show.
This show started out even more interestingly than usual because there was a special guest in the audience. My group of friends and I walked into the theatre and chose our seats, and as I was about to sit down, I noticed the special guest: a Taylor Swift cut-out sitting in the front row. It was my Taylor Swift cut-out, that I had gotten from my work. Apparently some of my friends had taken Taylor on an adventure that ended at Whose Line, and everyone seemed to be having fun with her. She even went up on stage with some of the actors and they took pictures with her. Everyone got a good laugh out of it and it was a great way to kill time before the show started!
Eventually the excitement around Taylor Swift being in the audience died down and the show started. The skits played out in the usual order. The actors played the Alphabet Game, where they went back and forth starting their line with the next letter in the alphabet. Then, they picked two people from the audience to play the Question Game, which is when all the actors and their two guests stand in a line and the front two go head to head asking only questions. The person who does not respond with a question goes to the back of the line, while the other person continues asking questions to the next person in line. The theatre club also did a skit where they pull out suggested lines and say them randomly throughout the skit. They ended the show with Helping Hands, which is when 2 people have 2 other people be their hands and they make “yummy” food with the ingredients in front of them. It always ends in a mess and the audience in fits of giggles. There are many more hilarious skits throughout the show and each one never fails to make the audience chuckle, giggle, or full out laugh.
One of my favorite things about the Whose Line is that everyone feels a sense of community for that one hour of comedy. The shared laughter everyone feels bonds us all together. And if you go multiple times, like I do because I love it so much, you start to recognize the other patrons. Usually the same people go each time and they bring a few new guests with them because they want to expose their friends to the fun show. I made sure I brought two of my commuter friends who usually are home by the time the show starts; I wanted to share the joy I feel when I go to the show. It’s not really just show; it’s an experience that everyone should have at least once.