Review |
At first glance TNT’s On-the-Spot improvisation company
is a group of performers who work together and hold each other up at
every opportunity. While incorporating the added benefit of learning
life skills through improvisation, coaches LaRee Florence and Steve
Gandola have taught these high school-aged performers how to provide
mild and comical entertainment for the community. The minute I walked
into TNT’s commercial performance space at 4357 Pacific Street in
Rocklin, the people involved couldn’t have been more polite about
getting me in to review the show. As the lights dimmed and the
performance began, hosts Brady and Mackenzie laid down the rules of the
game. Along with an abundance of audience participation, whenever
someone yelled “This was done entirely…” the audience was to shout
“...On the Spot!” As soon as the hosts introduced the cast, the audience
was asked for a name with one syllable. The name “Tom” was chosen and
right away a couple of backup singers started a quick and steady
“Buh-dum-bum-bump, bah dum-bum-boom" in the background while some of the
other performers launched into a spontaneous rap using sentences with
words which rhymed with “Tom,” such as “bomb,” “pom,” “mom,” “CD-ROM”
and “dot com.” Naturally, the cleverness of this spontaneity immediately
tickled the audience’s funny bone. During the course of the show a
keyboard player intermittently accompanied some of the action from
upstage, a lobby bell was used to end each sequence, and “commercials”
were cleverly added in between skits, advertising TNT’s classes and
performances.
Other improv sketches included: 1. “3-Headed Monster,”
in which a participant from the audience was picked out and serenaded,
one head and one word at a time, by a three-headed monster. 2. “POV,” in
which a rap song was generated with a place suggested by someone in the
audience. 3. “Underscore,” in which audience members temporarily donated
their cell phones and tablets so that theme music could be provided for
an extemporaneous movie plot. 4. “Freeze,” in which word suggestions
were collected from the audience for a skit which was continually
interrupted by one actor after another until the story was completed. 5.
“International Star,” which featured a Norwegian pop star with a
translator and several interpretive backup dancers. The finale, “Create
a Musical,” was by far the longest and most unbeatable sketch of the
show. As words such as “Walmart” and “school” were hurled from the
audience, an impromptu and rather nightmarish musical was created, which
involved a student being lost at Walmart University while a foreign
employee, a romance, two shady inspectors and a couple of disgruntled
workers added to the intrigue. Overall, I was very entertained and
amused by this troupe. Improvisation is the hardest aspect of theatrical
performance there is, and during the years that these
students have worked on improv, they have built
up the confidence to step out in the limelight and demonstrate their
hard-won skill.
TNT’s On-the-Spot performers include: Ryann Baily,
Eliza Blair, Pearley Dufort, Corbin Florence, Lucas Gandola, Brady
Holms, MacKenzie Nelson, Spencer Sanders and Samuel Stapp. |