CAITLIN WHITE
The Current Assistant Editor
Tomorrow marks the start of Pepperdine’s first annual comedy weekend, a celebration of improvisation and stand up comedy directed at entertaining the Pepperdine community. Both the talented comedians that Los Angeles attracts and possibly the very people sitting in class next to you will be performing, depending on if you attend the Friday or Saturday night events.
On Friday night at 8 p.m. in Elkins, the Student Programming Board will present a comedy competition dubbed “Last Student Standing,” which is modeled after NBC’s “Last Comic Standing.”
The show will feature these competitors putting on their comedy acts in an attempt to be the Last Student Standing. The student who wins will not only receive a $250 cash prize, but will also get to open up for comedian Ty Barnett for his performance at Pepperdine. Barnett was the third-place finisher for the fourth season of Last Comic Standing and will be performing Dec. 7 in Smothers Theatre.
Saturday continues the theme of comedy with an improv troupe from Los Angeles that features Pepperdine graduate Brian Jones. Again in Elkins, but this time starting at 7 p.m., the troupe will take suggestions from the audience and then proceed to put on a 45-minute completely improvised musical.
Senior Darnell Brisco, the Student Programming Board Arts & Entertainment Chair, said he wanted to come up with an innovative form of entertainment.
“It should be a fun weekend, a great weekend for laughs and a good time for the Pepperdine community to hang out and have a good time,” Brisco said. “It’s a cool form of entertainment, and there is a lot of talent on campus that hasn’t been tapped into, so I’m excited to see that.”
Brisco has worked with SPB for four years, last year he mainly focused on setting up the films for Elkins movie nights.
“I still pick the films for movie nights in Elkins, but I am doing other forms of arts and entertainment now also,” Brisco said.
The weekend is the first of its kind at Pepperdine, in spite of the obvious presence on campus of student entertainers and comedians, as displayed by Pepperdine’s own improv troupe, PIT, and the student TV program, channel 26.
“There has been expressed interest from students who are involved in PIT and TV 26 about having a chance to display what they got and test out their comedic talents in front of a Pepperdine audience,” Brisco said. “I worked together with a few other students to make that a reality, and hopefully it will be successful.”
Pepperdine already possesses a unique affiliation with improvisation through the Pepperdine Improv Troupe.
Allegra Edwards, a sophomore this year has been a member of the troupe since last year. She said she loves the freedom that improv allows.
“I think it is very freeing,” she said. “You are able to explore completely new and wild situations and characters. Everyone is giving you the green light, so even if I do make a fool out of myself, it would create an even better show. The audience almost expects me to humiliate myself.”
Edwards worked with some of the performers in the improv group over the summer.
“I took classes with some of the members this summer, and they are awesome,” she said.
Sophomore Jeffrey Thompson has also been a member of PIT since last year. He is going to be one of the performers for “Last Student Standing” on Friday night.
“I think the events are going to be great,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the comedy night because I rarely get to do many non-improvised things. Being able to do something different is always fun.”
Thompson said the ideas for his comedy set just come to him out of every day life.
“Usually things just come to me,” he said. “I’ll be thinking, and I’ll say, ‘Wow, I could probably make that funny.’ So I write it down and then I workshop it.”
SPB adviser Jarret Fisher said he is very pleased with the event that Brisco has planned and is looking forward to seeing the acts.
“That guy in psych, who’s usually pretty quiet in class, he might be the funniest person you’ve ever seen when center stage,” Fisher said.
As a students living in a small community, it seems it is sometimes easy to grow tired of the same old events and places, but this upcoming weekend offers an entirely new take on comedy that has never been attempted before.
And, all this innovative entertainment for the very good price of free. Fisher also said he is interested in seeing what the students present.
“I’m looking forward to the unexpected and even hoping for a few jokes that poke a little fun at ourselves,” he said.
11-15-2007
