On Sunday night at 9 p.m., students gathered in Cholmondeley's for a night of laughter and leisure before the start of the first five day week of the semester, a sign that the school year is beginning its intensity. Chum's was hosting the first improvisation show of the year, a show that consisted of four popular improv groups on campus, each with a half-hour slot.
I got there 10 minutes early, expecting people to be trickling in, and was pleasantly surprised to see the place packed from wall to wall. People were crammed in all the way to the back of the room and sitting on the floor in front of the stage. It seemed like the entire Brandeis community had come to support peers, hang out with friends or just enjoy a decadent chocolate milkshake from the coffeehouse.

The first group, TBA, started off the night with a lively performance. The group played a unique improv game in which two members of the group verbally battled over an audience volunteer for a date with him. Throughout the game, the two members of TBA would tap members of the audience for inspirational words, which they would then use in their monologues. The game ended when Gabby Zilkha '16 got the word "sausage" and, completely baffled, announced to the volunteer that she liked sausage. The volunteer promptly chose her for his "future date."

Next was False Advertising, a group that specializes in musical and long form improv, a type of improvisation in which the skits tend to be more detailed and complex. False Advertising's show was absolutely hilarious and skits ranged from children trying to find husbands to animal testing on talking mice.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of False Advertising's performance, even above their impeccable humor, was the musical improvisation. Periodically during the improvisation, False Advertising's pianist, Nate Shaffer '16 would start an improvised riff and the entire group, or select members of the group, depending on who was speaking at the time, would join in a completely improvised musical number.

Kelsey Segaloff '15 did an amazing job actually rhyming lyrics on the spot, giving the impression of a well-rehearsed number. The musical numbers were not repetitive and songs had diverse tempos, keys and melodies and thus exuded an air of professionalism.

The next group to perform was Bad Grammer, a group specializing in short form improv, improvisation in which the group quickly changes from skit to skit and game to game. An audience favorite was Bad Grammer's advice game, which went like this: the group called on a first-year to yell out a college-related problem he had experienced since being at Brandeis and three members of Bad Grammer would attempt to give advice on the issue. The twist was that the first member gave "good" advice, a second gave "bad" advice and the third gave "evil" advice. Problems ranged from "Massell is a dry quad" to "my roommate had sex on my bed." The "bad" solution for the former was to do a rain dance, preferably with one of those rain sticks we all had as children, and the forbidden substances would rain down. Needless to say, the audience was amused.

The last group to go, Crowd Control, provided an especially comical finish to the night. The group started with a line game called "I Make Love Like I...." The game operated exactly how it sounded. In the game, the audience suggested verbs such as "drink" or "study" to finish the phrase "I make love like I" and then the members finished the analogy. One particularly entertaining analogy was "I make love like I swim: I stroke at a competitive pace."

Adult content was an ongoing theme in Crowd Control's performance. In their long form improvisation, Samantha Gordon '14 and Andrew Savage '16 snuck into Usdan Student Center at four in the morning to have sex. Savage had just commented that the leftover ketchup on the tables could conveniently function as lube, when the cleaning lady walked in, ruining the mood. The couple's cover-up got them posted as culinary interns for a week.

The improv showcase was the perfect way to start off the year in a fun, casual night out with friends. The humor, especially the raunchy and explicit humor, was a perfect way for students to let go of shopping period stress.