Culver City Middle School Comedy Improv troupe will perform at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturday May 18 and at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Sunday May 19t at the Willows Community School Theater, 8520 Warner Drive, in Culver City. Each performance will feature a different group of performers.
Regular tickets are $10 for one show, $15 for a one day pass and $20 for a weekend pass; student and CCUSD staff ticket prices are $5 for one show, $10 for a one day pass and $15 for a weekend pass. Incoming fifth-grade students can attend as many shows as they’d like for the special price of just $5.
Forty-four enthusiastic and innovative Culver City Middle School students compose the Comedy Improv Troupe, directed by Jennifer Flack and Eric Price, professional improv performers with extensive experience teaching improv to middle and high school students. Thanks to the GLEE grant, this set of shows will feature a 30-minute improvised musical, lead by Scott Pasarella, also a professional improvisor, who will guide the students from the piano.
Similar to professional improv performances, students will accept audience suggestions for skit topics. Each skit – the characters, conversations, actions and resolution – will be entirely made up on the spot by the CCMS students from the suggested topics. This style of performing requires confidence, adaptability, creative thinking and extensive practice. The students have been honing their skills September, building on their first set of performances in February.
“While encouraging play and discouraging hesitancy we teach them to be kind to themselves and each other, face fear, take pride in their ideas, celebrate and have confidence in themselves and each other, perform to the top of their intelligence and work as a team,” Flack said. “These are performance skills and they are life skills. We are extremely proud of the CCMS Improv Troupe and what they have accomplished this year.”
The Improv Comedy troupe, one of two classes offered by CCMS Theatre Arts, was made possible in part by The Glee Give A Note Foundation, which awarded the three-year-old program a $10,000 grant. CCMS Theatre Arts is a program of Panther Partners, a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that raises funds for and develops and delivers a variety of after-school enrichment classes for the students of Culver City Middle School, in conjunction with the CCMS administration and the Culver City Unified School District. CCMS Theatre Arts enjoys the active support of and coordination with the Middle School administration and members of the Culver City School Board.
For more information please email [email protected].
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