On Friday Oct. 21, Geneseo improv group Currently Known As: performed its first show of the year, "The Littlest Teapot," for a large, enthusiastic audience in Sturges Auditorium.
The night of improvisation began with a game called "Teatime with Travis," in which three members fielded questions from the audience about tea. They took numerous questions from actual audience members, as well as from fellow improvisers strategically placed in the crowd.
In "Teatime with Travis," the improvisers acted as an elderly British housewife, an anti-authoritarian nature lover and a Secret Service director. With such different personalities placed next to each other, hilarity ensued. The members of the audience applauded and laughed their heads off until the group had to insist they begin the next game.
Next was "Straight Man and a Script," where junior Miles Shadman read lines from the script for the show "Equus," which was also to be performed at Geneseo that night. Shadman's fellow improvisers had to act out a basis for Shadman to say his lines. Shadman's lines like "Eat my sins" earned snickers, laughter and shock from the audience – a mixture of students and their parents on campus for Parents' Weekend.
Other crowd favorites included a game called "Slideshow," in which junior Sam White and sophomore Philip Romano discussed a trip they took to an abandoned house on Mars, as other improvisers got into ridiculous poses as if they were pictures off the slides of the vacation.
Another notable skit was "Oxygen Deprivation," in which three improvisers took turns dunking their heads in a bucket of water as the others continued the scene without them. When each participant emerged, they had to put together a coherent scene while soaking wet and confused about what had gone on while they had been dunked in the bucket.
The audience laughed loudly as Romano hopped around the stage as a part-human, part-rabbit creature while the other improvisers tried to make sense of what to do. Then, sophomore Will Maher drowned Romano to put him out of his misery and the rabbit-man was no more, providing a very dramatic end to the show.
Currently Know As: performed their hour-and-a-half set with a vigor that kept the audience interested all the way through, and at the end, White actually had to suggest to the eager audience that they could leave.