Improviser 1: All right, for this scene, we’re going to need a trope. Tropes, anyone?
Audience Member 1: A wedding cancelled due to a miscarriage!
Audience Member 2: A man, trapped, sees no other course but to end his life!!
Audience Member 3 : A man beats his wife because his father taught him that love was desperate and hateful!
I**** mproviser 1: Miscarriage, I heard miscarriage.
Improviser 2: Okay, now we’re going to play “Bartender”. First up is Randall. Randall is despondent about something, what is he despondent about?
Audience Member 1: Crippling ennui !
Audience Member 2: A friendship irrevocably slipping away!
Improviser 2: Ennui it is!
Randall: (Drinks silently, sighs.)
Audience: (Empathizes wildly.)
Improviser 3: Okay, we’ve got our scene: a café with Immanuel Kant and King Edward VII. Now, can we have an inner conflict?
Audience Members 1 and 2: Oedipal complex!
(Everyone laughs cathartically)
Improviser 4: Damn it, Susan, I put my whole life into that painting! How could you take that away from me?
Improviser 5: Uh… I, um… shit.
Audience Member 1: Starved for affection!
Improviser 5: Right. Steve, it was consuming everything! You paid more attention to that painting than your own wife! [Whispers to Audience Member 1] Thank you…
