SDA Plays LCC in ComedySportz for the first rime in-person since Lockdown

Blue and red lights illuminated the La Costa Canyon high school amphitheater at 7pm the night of October 28th. Students gathered on the field and on hay bale seats while classic pop songs played from giant speakers. This was the first live and in-person game of ComedySportz since the shutdown in March 2020. Players from both teams were eager to compete as the audience cheered for their respective schools.

The game started with a match of Da-Doo-Ron-Ron, chosen by the LCC’s blue team, a fast-paced rhyming game that requires players to follow the beat of the game’s title. It came down to the two captains, Finley Louch of SDA and Maia Stevenson of LCC, before SDA’s red team took the victory for that round.

The game went on with a series of scene games like Cutaway and Scantron. These games require more input from the referee than the typical scene-games. 

In Cutaway, the referee can stop the scene at any time and “cut away” to a new scene, usually involving at least one of the previous characters. 

In Scantron, when a decision is being made in the scene, the referee can call a pause in the scene and ask the audience what should happen next. The audience gets a multiple choice question with as many options as there are players. 

After the audience saw a star’s funeral and a scarecrow doing his taxes in Party City, the game’s Town Hall created a change of scenery.

In this game, the players from both teams disperse into the audience. Each person takes a turn to stand up and discuss their opinions on a nonsensical issue. For this game, the debate topic was on shoes. SDA’s red team was for and LCC’s blue team was against. Characters from opposing and same teams formed relationships within the game, which created a personal experience for the audience.

The first half of the game was largely more competitive, but the second half included more games with collaboration between the red and blue teams. A game of Four Rooms commenced. With eight players total and two players per “room,” one player from each team was partnered up. 

A few of these scenarios included a dangerous rock-climbing expedition and two marathon runners struggling to tie their shoelaces. The audience voted by clapping and cheering for the blue team’s victory.

Finally, the game ended with a pun-based game that suspends the groaner foul (which loses your team a point for telling “dad jokes”). The SDA and LCC teams were challenged to create puns about Ryan Reynolds, Oprah Winfrey and even the Target Dog.

By the end of the game, LCC had beat SDA with 180 points compared to 171. The blue and red lights faded and the audience left the LCC amphitheatre after laughing for an hour and a half straight. Friday, November 5th at 7pm, SDA will host its first ComedySportz home game since before the pandemic.