WESFIELD, Mass., March 4, 2014- Members of Westfield State University’s improv troupe, Westfield House of Improv Players (WHIP), performed at the College Comedy Festival in Boston, Mass. from February 20 – 22. Six of the 20 student members of WHIP traveled to Boston to compete, and their team placed ninth out of fourteen in the competition.
The College Comedy Festival is an annual competition held at Improv Boston in Cambridge, Mass., and is organized in order to give college improv teams a chance to showcase their talent and take part in some friendly competition. College improv teams from all over Massachusetts compete, with the majority of the teams hailing from the Boston area. The winning team receives a trophy.
The six members that represented WHIP at the College Comedy Festival were senior and second year improv member Joey Ducharme and freshman, first year improv members Ian Flannery, Kelsey Fitzgerald, Katie Leahy, Ben Littlefield, and Andrew Mitchell.
Ducharme stated, “As a club, we are all very proud of the members who competed and look forward to showcasing WHIP’s talents again at next year’s festival.”
WHIP was formed three years ago when Westfield State’s music department performed “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.” This show required audience participation on stage, and the cast held an improv workshop in order to learn how to work with audience members.
Ernie Iannaccone, faculty advisor of WHIP and director of Dever Stage, explained: “I felt it would be helpful to have some knowledge and experience with improv since, during the show, audience members would be called up on stage in order to participate. I felt that improv would not only help the cast with strengthening and developing their characters, but would also prepare them for whatever audience members decided to do while on stage.”
After the initial improv workshop, students continued to show interest and decided to form their own improv club. Iannaccone worked with interested students as a coach at their rehearsals, and the club achieved official status in April of 2012.
WHIP is run by a student-elected executive board. The 2013-2014 executive board consists of president Dani Collette, vice president Alex Potter, secretary Joey Ducharme, and treasurer Jeff Dodd. Currently, there are 20 active members in WHIP, with another five to ten members that participate when they are available.
Ducharme said, “We, as a club, do not believe in turning anyone away. Anyone is more than welcome to come to rehearsals and participate. You can come just once, once a week, or to every rehearsal.”
WHIP has two main stage shows for the semester, which will take place at Dever Stage. Ducharme said that there may be one or two smaller shows in the Owl’s Nest. The next show will be a benefit show, with all proceeds going to the American Cancer Society. The benefit show will be on Saturday, March 22 at 7:30 p.m. at Dever Stage. The last main stage show of the semester will be on Saturday, April 3 at 7:30 p.m. at Dever Stage. The cost for the April 3 show is $3. For more information about the upcoming shows at Dever Stage, visit Dever’s event calendar here: www.westfield.ma.edu/techinfo/deverevents .