The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center was abuzz with activity Friday as the NextNOW Fest was officially in full swing.
Everything from virtual reality games to painting and crafting with Bob Ross was available for the festival-goers, and there was a myriad of performances occurring on various stages.
As the doors to the Upright Citizens Brigade TourCo show were opening, a group of artists on one of the other stages appeared to be playing a balloon string as an instrument, effectively representing the beautifully bizarre nature of the festival.
The UCB TourCo put on a fully improvised show, pulling their material only from random texts on audience members’ phones, classic tropes about college living and an interview with a lovable freshman name Eli Fastow.
Fastow had the story that intrigued the improv troupe the most when they prompted the audience to tell them a crazy story about this past week: he had heard from a German exchange student about someone stripping naked in a library.
The troupe of only four members took that story, as well as many other details from the interview, and ran with it in their first sketch, establishing several jokes that would be called back to later.
The group of Matt Star, Tanner Dahlin, Jessica Morgan and Andy Bustillos is a set group that performs together, traveling to venues (often colleges) up and down the East Coast. Improv comedy with only four people can be difficult, as there are fewer people to interject new ideas into a scene.
“You can’t pull it off if you aren’t honoring the other people on stage,” Morgan said in an interview before the show. “The result is bigger than anything you could produce on your own.”
“A lot of the time it’s a reality-based scene with one unusual thing,” Dahlin explained about their comedic style.
Fastow, whose charming on-stage interview prompted Dahlin to remark, “I wish I was your mother,” had seen the group perform before and appreciated them making jokes about his interview.
Fastow was a celebrity after the show had ended, posing for selfies with the troupe and fans alike.
“I wouldn’t say there’s an inner performer in me. I’m an engineer,” he said with an amused smile.
Erasable Inc., University of Maryland’s own well-established improve troupe, opened for the UCB TourCo and participated in a workshop led by Dahlin.
Bustillos explained that touring with their group is “a great way to work on your comedy chops.”
UCB’s weekend was only just beginning; they performed at the University of Virginia Saturday.
Added Starr, “The road answers all questions.”
