By: Molly Hubert
Suffolk University’s Improv comedy troop Seriously Bent wrapped up another year of laughs, gasps, and the occasional tear with their end of the year show Anonymous Confessions this past weekend. The sold-out show, which ran Friday through Saturday, consisted of the groups regular improv comedy routine as well as sketches that the group have been working on for the past month.
Sketches included characters invented and used throughout the year, who would involve audience members with suggestions and even pulling a few people on stage. Maddie Fritz, a junior, said her favorite sketch was graduating group member Tobias Fogies’ Festive a character donning an Easter bunny costume with a certain intensity that makes you so uncomfortable that you can not help but laugh.
“I got pulled up on stage and he showed me a karate move. Then he gave me a hug,” said Fritz. “It was so strange and made me feel so weird that I was dying laughing the whole time. He’s a great character.”
Other sketches included a mafia parody, female members all gossiping at a nail salon, and a cat puppet that got neutered and like most college students, leaned a little too heavily on the booze to mend his broken (or rather completely removed) body parts.
While the team lost four members this year, new members Tom Burk, Lucas Fresno and Nick Trainor did great in their first sketch show with the group. Fritz says they blended very well with the tightly knit group. “It was like they’d been on the team for years.”
Junior Zack Barker, who has been on the team since his freshman year, says the process of putting the end of the year show together is fun because it is so different from what the team normally does.
“We pitched sketches to each other for a few weeks and on the Tuesday before our show we picked the ones we liked most. Then we had a set line up Thursday and rehearsed Thursday night.”
“The written sketches are inspired by past improv shows that got a good reaction from the crowd,” said Barker.
Sophomore troupe member John McGregor attributes the little time it takes for the group to get sketches down to their close friendship outside the team. “We hang out together pretty much every day. It’s great that we all get along so well, and being able to joke together even after practice makes for some serious comedy chemistry.”
Apart from being one of the most well known student organizations on campus, Seriously Bent competes all over Boston in improv competitions with other college troupes and has even traveled as far as Chicago, where they placed fourth in the annual College Improv Tournament National Championship last year.
Many of the members pursue their comedy career outside of Seriously Bent at the Improv Asylum, performing and opening as a group for other local comedy troupe Just Suspects. Some Seriously Bent alumni, including Christian Roberts and Ethan Bukowiec, who were in attendance for Saturday night’s show, have gone on to work in short films, plays, and stand up shows.
The group will continue with their 150 Tremont St. dorm shows on Thursday nights at 10 p.m. through the end of the Spring semester and pick back up in the fall.
