 "Photo: Karl McDonald")
It's hard to imagine a world without the musical contributions of the Beastie Boys or where picking your nose as Barack Obama panhandles for change does not land you in jail. What?
Enter Gigglepants, the University comedy troupe that has been honing its brand of "spot" improv since 2003.
Spot improv is comedic jazz with a twist. Everything is completely improvised, but the performers field suggestions from the audience on the spot, hence the aforementioned Obama reference. It's performance Mad Libs - only madder.
Gigglepants employs a competitive form of the art. Two teams are pitted against each other and must compete for points, which ultimately decide - or may have completely no bearing - on the winner of the match.
Like any game, Gigglepants matches also have rules. If a performer or audience member says something that "crosses the line," he or she receives a "brown bag foul." When one commits a brown bag foul, their punishment is to wear a brown paper bag over their head for the rest of the performance.
Andrew Grissom, a member since spring 2007 and a radio-television-film sophomore, said the fouls are mainly a funny way to promote and reinforce the improv group's family appeal.
"It's kind of a joke punishment thing. It's all in good fun," said Grissom, clad in Umbro shorts and a
white jersey.
Gigglepants performed Friday in front of a quirky crowd, avidly interacting with the referee, who fielded suggestions for the scenarios that would encompass each game. One audience member incessantly suggested former "Full House" star Bob Saget. The shows are comprised of mini-matches, some of which call for both teams to play and others that are one-team games.
One of these mini-matches, entitled "Four Rooms, Four Scenes," called for pairs of performers to act out scenes revolving around themes like potatoes, banana hammocks and Dance Dance Revolution, all of which were
audience suggestions.
In "Chain Murder," one team member had to mime out a crime scene to other team members, oblivious to the answer, in a chain. The audience pitched suggestions as to where and how the murder was committed, which the first performer heard and then mimed to the next teammate until each was able to guess the answer.
The audience chuckled as "Team Blue"
unsuccessfully pantomimed a murder scene in which the killing took place in a bowl of spaghetti with a laser tied to
a blazer.
In addition to being able to gesture and silently act out the scene, the performers were allowed to speak incoherent babble, which ended up sounding a lot like the Simolean language of the reality video game series "The Sims."
Grissom recalled one outtake from a past show in which he had to act out the occupation of a ninja-star defecator.
"It was quite interesting to watch because, as it went on, it kept getting tweaked, so it ended up being something like samurai sword toilet paper manufacturer," he said.
The troupe holds tryouts at the beginning of the fall and spring semesters. Tryouts for this spring were canceled, however, because the roster was too large.
With the help of Facebook as an advertising tool, Gigglepants had, by far, their biggest turnout of applicants during their fall semester tryouts, Gigglepants Captain Yamina Khouane said. She estimated 20 to 30 auditioned.
Although improvisational comedy is theater-oriented, Gigglepants is comprised of funny men and women in all sorts of majors. Khouane is one of the group's sole theatre majors.
Practically devoid of theatre majors, Gigglepants' right-brain appeal tends to attract many left-brain thinkers.
"Up to this date, about half the troupe are computer science and engineering majors,"
Khouane said.
Thai Le, along with friends, created Gigglepants in 2003.
The troupe's shows are free, and they operate as a nonprofit student organization funded mostly through a grant received in spring 2007.
Khouane said the free aspect of Gigglepants shows is essential to its spirit.
"If we started putting a price on the show, I think it would give people more of an expectation about the quality, and that's a lot of pressure because we're not professional improvisers," she said. "We're just students at UT that like improv."
Khouane also feels it's important to make their performances accessible to a wide audience because not everyone can afford to pay to see an improv show.
"It's not about the money," she said. "It's for the love of the art."
There's no need to beg for change to see a Gigglepants show. Besides, panhandling isn't really your thing, nor is it Obama's. Right?
Their next performance is at 8 p.m. April 4 in Calhoun 100.
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