 "Photo: Shelley Neuman")
The two students acting out a scene from a burning strip club immediately stopped when an audience member yelled "freeze" during an improv exercise at a Footnotes theater troupe meeting Tuesday.
Footnotes founder William Liu told the theater group that he signed them up to perform April 14 in Jester Dormitory as part of the Asian American Heritage Week, and the members celebrated their chance to perform for the second time.
"It's an opportunity for us to get out and do stuff," Liu said.
Liu established Footnotes theater group last October after he was inspired by a 2006 performance of another theater group. The group's goal is "to empower the Asian American community to pursue creative outlets through the literary, performance and production arts," according to their online statement.
"I remember first seeing this troupe, but then somehow it went away. I stopped hearing about them," Liu said. "I wanted to re-create another troupe like this for the Asian American community."
The troupe was off to a slow start with only two to three members at first, but after some community recruiting, membership was looking up.
Although the group did much of its recruiting within the Asian American community on campus, membership is not limited to Asians, Liu said.
The budding group has thus far participated in one event sponsored by the Asian Business Students Association and the Asian Pacific American Coalition.
Electrical engineering sophomore Thein-an Nguyen said he enjoyed the group's first performance.
"Depending on what our skit is like for the upcoming performance, I am really excited about it, as well," Nguyen said.
While some members joined for their love of improv, poetry writing and general creativity, others have joined Footnotes to get in touch with their culture, undeclared sophomore Ly Pham said.
Pham said she heard about the group through a friend in an Asian American Studies class and was invited by Liu after he heard of her interest.
"I think ever since I took Asian American Studies, I'm always trying to understand culture in a different way," Pham said. "What we're taught in history classes isn't enough. You can't get the whole gist through history books. You need human interaction."
Liu said the group hopes to become a regular performing organization but first has other goals in mind.
"I want us to reach a point where the actors can interact and formulate on their own," Liu said. "Eventually accolades would be nice, it looks good on a resume, but it's not everything. That's not the totality of our group."
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