Last Friday was our second Royal Fools improv show of the year. I scheduled the date about six or eight weeks ago, and I had looked at the calendar to make sure we were not going up against anything else that evening. The date got approved and everything was set, and then I found out that the boys’ basketball team had the opening game of the playoffs that evening. So much for the best-laid plans. So, we had a smaller crowd than we have had for a while, but it was still big enough to feel festive – we probably had about seventy people (we have been up around a hundred for the last four or five shows), and they were an active crowd.

The show was solid, with some shining moments, as well as a few mistakes (there were several times where the students said “no” on stage, and that is never supposed to happen). The show included:

– An art review of art inspired by an artist’s “happy” period.
– A man who made a new type of apple and then had to do the scene again in slow motion and then again while breakdancing.
– A dating game where the candidates were Frodo, Steven Hawking, and Hilary Clinton.
– A political debate over the merits of Coca-Cola and over the existence of unicorns.
– A girl caught in her dastardly crime of enjoying the book Twilight, with her accomplice Yoda, while at the North Pole.
– A group of students who silently had to act out going to the moon to catch bees, where they died after having foot surgery that went wrong.
– An improv showdown that included variations on how to say “That’s my hippopotamus!”
– A skit about being scared of words while being in a library.
– The Fools’ recreation of the 1980s film Dark Crystal.
– A paperback skit where a coach was playing favorites with one of his athletes.
– A musical chairs game about a birthday party that was interrupted by a snow storm and a Yeti.
– A skit about invading Mars and then feeling bad about doing so.
– A game where the kids had their hands removed in order to have muppets implanted on the ends of their arms.
– A Foolish Idol competition where the contestants sang about a Shamwow and carrots.

So, I was pretty pleased with the show. It was a long one – it went a full hour and a half (most shows are an hour and ten minutes or so), but I did not feel as if the show dragged on too long. There were two games I should have ended sooner than I did, but that happens in improv – sometimes I think things are going to keep on getting better and I miss the spot where I should have ended things.

We have one more show to do this year, which should be in early May. Then, I will lose a stunning twelve of my fourteen Fools to graduation, including one student who has been in the group for four years, and another four students who have been with me for three years. This is going to be a very hard act to follow next year, but we still have two more months of improv wackiness to go this year. It should be fun.