“Quiet on set!”

Five…. Four…. Three…. Two…. One….

As the opening credits rolled, a larger than usual studio audience applauded for this week’s episode of the William Paterson student run improv show, And Scene.

Live from Studio A in Hobart Hall, And Scene had a special thematic episode on October 11. Concurring with Pride week, a LGBTQA+ improv show of And Scene was put on. The four performers represented the William Paterson LGBTQA+ community: Sam Cordero, Zachary Guida, Katie Stoerger, and Matthew Diaz. This episode was put together by the collaboration of Pioneer Players, an improv club, and the TV club, which filmed the episode.

Senior Theatre and Comedy/English Writing major and Pioneer Players President, CJ von Essen, filled in as host for Joey Fatone.

The format of the show has a series of improv games played by the cast members. The first game was a dating game. Sam had to choose between three secret potential dates. Katie played someone who was slowly coming out of a closet, Zach played as Elton John, and Matt played an individual that was in a committed relationship with someone named Kevin. Sam eventually chose Zach because she likes British accents.

The next game played was Movie Mixer, where the cast members had to briefly act out two different movies. Some of the combinations were, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Dark Knight, Babaduke and Mulan, and High School Musical and Brokeback Mountain.

Following a bit of banter, the players performed a game called survivor, where after each interval, the audience would clap loudly for the individuals that they wanted to keep seeing on the scene. With each round, the players had to keep the same plot points. The plot revolved around a child coming out as straight to their parents. As the scene kept progressing, it got more and more compressed as less cast members had to juggle the roles of those departed. Eventually, only Diaz remained on the scene, where he quickly performed all the roles. Following the performance, the host noted, “I like how you deteriorated to just sounding nouns.”

The next game was I Like My Women, where cast members would compare objects with how they would like their women/men/people. The objects in question for this week were rainbows, musicals, unicorns, and fanny packs. Katie said, “I like my women how I like my rainbows, in any color.” Zach said, “I like my women how I like my musicals, I love way too many.”

After another break, an audience member was brought to the hosting table to hold up a bingo board, a ritual drawing that the show incorporated into every episode last spring. This week I23 was drawn. The topic associated with this ball was ‘Big Holiday Party’. The cast member proceeded to play a game called half-life, where after each interval, the scene would have to be performed in half the time.

The last game of the night was a fan favorite called Freeze. In this game, two of the cast members would perform a scene and one of the other two members of the cast would call out “freeze!” and take one of the cast member’s positions on the stage. The most memorable line from this sequence was “Now I’m poor because of brunch!”

Christopher Von Essen said, “I am very grateful that Pioneer Players and the TV club worked together on this event for celebration week.”

Each week, Pioneer Players holds biweekly meetings under the ballrooms from 7-9pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The club is also putting on a murder mystery that will be performed Nov. 9 and 10 within Hobart Manor. Episodes of And Scene are performed every Thursday in Hobart Hall, Studio A, at 5 pm.

Episodes of And Scene can be found at https://bit.ly/2Onui1D