Keeping in tune with annual tradition, Pepperdine Improv Troupe brought nonstop laughter to students and their families alike at this year’s Waves Weekend alumni show, held in Elkins Auditorium on Oct. 5.
The troupe’s director of improv Isabel Klein (’19) hosted the comedy show, guiding 11 current troupe members and seven troupe alumni through various theatrical games and improvised scenes, most of which relied on audience-given prompts.
In one scene, three performers acted out a love triangle in Waves Café. In another, four performers rotated through four two-actor scenes, each of them hastily swapping between playing two different roles.
“We have no idea of what’s going to happen, and then we just roll with it,” PIT President Nico Heard said.
Heard played the keyboard to comedic effect throughout the hour-long show. He played a hip-hop drumbeat during a team-based rap battle game and a ballpark organ tune whenever performers lost an improv version of “Categories.”
Between each scene, Klein asked audience members for input. For instance, the crowd was solicited for a “breaking news” story to be explained in a broadcast news segment. Klein settled on a scene suggestion where two Pepperdine students miraculously found parking on campus.
At another point in the show, a female audience member shouted “You’re hot!” at three performers before another audience member in the back then shouted “Not you, Kayla!” — directed toward one of the troupe’s alumni who was about to perform. He then explained his comment was poorly timed and unrelated, to which the cast integrated the moment into a musical number, drawing uproarious laughter from the crowd.
One of the games, called “new choice,” forced actors to reconsider their words in a criminal trial against a dog owner whose canine ate the defendant’s tube of chapstick.
The presiding judge, played by 2023 alum Sam Brock, said a doctor would be required to get it out. Klein yelled “New choice” repeatedly until Brock declared there would be no solution unless the dog pukes it up. Cole Wagner, the 2024 alum who played the dog, proceeded to mimic vomiting.
The show was the 2024 PIT crew’s first of the academic year. They currently have 14 members — the typical number, Heard said — including Heard and junior and Vice President Reece McDaniel.
“If you don’t know what PIT is, just come see it,” Heard said. “I think you’re gonna love it from the track record. Most people just don’t know that it’s as cool as it actually is, and that it’s as funny as it actually is, and also, laughter is good for your soul.”
Improv was introduced to Pepperdine in the mid-1990s, class of 1987 alum Dean Noble said. Shows were initially performed at university events by actors from Los Angeles Theatresports, now known as Impro Theatre, thanks to Noble’s planning as the group’s college outreach chair. It became a student organization in 2000.
PIT’s next show will be Halloween themed and held Oct. 25 in Elkins Auditorium. Admission will be free.
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Contact Henry Adams via email: henry.adams@pepperdine.edu
