Thespians face Comedy Sportz in Epic Showdown

As “Come on Eileen” played over the speakers, the audience began to flow into San Dieguito Academy’s theater for a game of Comedy Sportz on Feb. 9. The players, including representatives from the Thespian Club, huddled back stage waiting for their introduction. Thespians wore red, Comedy Sportz players wore blue.

While experienced players such as junior Wyatt Clay expressed complete confidence, members of the Thespian Club were more concerned prior to the game. Clay said, “I’m expecting to win, that’s for sure. It’s an easy win. These theater kids have no idea what’s coming at them. We have been doing this for a long time and they have no experience. It’s ridiculous.”

However, senior Julie Daughters, theater, sarcastically said, “We can’t really prepare at all so I’m really excited for that. I’m not going to throw up. It’s going to be awesome. I usually do costumes. I’m not on stage.”

The music faded out and the referee gave a short description of the rules of the game. Then there was a short pause and a round of applause as the first player, junior Mike Sturman, was announced and ran onto the stage. The remaining seven players followed one by one, jumping and waving at the crowd.

The referee exclaimed, “Captains to the playing field!”

Captains Gibran Mustafa  and Lawrynce Cecio, seniors,  joined the referee at center stage for a game of intense rock paper scissors (or “Coin Flip” as it is called by Comedy Sportz players). Cecio won, so he got to choose the first game: ‘What you got?”

The audience gave a suggestion to the players and they thought of phrases and a movement to fit the theme. For example, the suggestion was math and the blue team said, “Finding the angle, finding the angle, hey what you got?’’ Then the teams alternated until one of the players could not think of another phrase and mumbles something ridiculously off topic or says nothing at all. Five points were awarded to the blue team (Comedy Sportz) for winning the first game.

Next up was a game of first line, last line. The audiences’ brilliant suggestions added to the humor as the blue team tried to create a scene where the first line was “Has anybody seen my scissors?” and the last line was “My family is inside.” It involved a hunchbacked assistant, and a costume maker who discovered that his family was in fact inside of the hunched back. There are only two words to describe this piece of improv: weird and hilarious.

The Thespians responded with “Naïve Replay,” during which three players acted out a scene with the suggestion “band” as if there was an invisible fourth person acting. This fourth player was sent to a silent room and then was called back in to act in the scene as the additional person. Ava Lilie, senior, fit right into the scene where she was a competing guitarist with another band member. Where the original scene called for a heated argument and dramatic guitar solo, Lilie was more level headed in the replay leading to some fantastic improvisation. Five points to the red team.

To settle this tie, the blue team played a game of Slow Motion Olympics. Who knew that competitive dish washing could be such a thrill? The Red team played “Interrogation” for their shot at five points. Two players, Cecio and Daughters, interviewed Lilie and senior Olivia Olander. However, this was not your typical interrogation, as the criminals didn’t know their crime. The interviewers had the difficult task of giving clues to help Lilie and Olander determine that they had been “talking in a movie theater, with Thor, at Disneyland.”  While they figured it out on time, five points were awarded to the blue team.

After a humorous game of Town Hall meeting where players debated over the legality of microscopes, the score was Blue 10, Red 11, Audience 1. Red was given an extra point for winning a game of thumb war and the 45 people in the audience were such good participants that the referee graciously awarded them a point.

The Comedy Sportz players invented the game of “Slimy Jumping Clock” during Gameomatic. Each player had a water bottle, and if water left it time in the scene slows down. Every time they jumped, time in the scene sped up. The result was a lot of laughter and soaked players. Red team generated some laughter with Yearbook. Players described their peers in a photo from Light Bulb Club.

During Good Bad Worse, the audience asked the blue team questions, and they responded with some genuinely terrible advice. Local plumber Ron, played by junior Caeden Schlosser, gave good advice, where junior Wyatt Clay was Hagan Das, and senior Taina Millsap was Dolphin Man, both giving bad advice. Red Team countered with Blind line where phrases were written on pieces of paper that were scattered across the floor. They seamlessly integrated the line “I knew you were trouble” into a dramatic scene that took place in a bunker during the apocalypse.

With a score of Blue 20 and Red 24, it all came down to a game of Object Freeze. Players turned an inanimate object into something else. For example, a plastic egg became a phone. (The power of imagination is endless.)

Drum roll please…

Five points to the blue team! Comedy Sportz players won 25 to 24. It was a nail biter, contrary to Clay’s prediction.

Following the game, Lilie said, “The games I expected to be good on our end were not as great as some of the ones that I wasn’t expecting anything from. The hardest part is trying to make your teammates look good. You have to try to build them a character that they can use.”

Mustafa added, “Having the thespians there brought such a different energy to it.”

Daughters said, “I have a lot more respect for the people who do this all the time now. There is a lot more work that goes into it than people think.”