WIT combined with 11 teachers to perform “High school seniors vs Senior citizens” and a wide range of improv games.
Each game had its own theme and rules, forcing the actors to think on their feet. One of the first games was “Word Count,” where performers were limited to a certain number of words before they had to stop talking completely. In one scene, the prompt involved penguins who needed breadsticks, and a “great king” who left them alone, creating chaos as the actors struggled to use their words wisely.
Another crowd favorite was “Silent Replay,” a four person game split into two groups. One group performed a scene while the other wore headphones and couldn’t hear anything. The second group then had to reenact the scene based only on what they saw. In this round, assistant principal Casey Ryan and sophomore Graham Goodner acted out an ice skating scene, which senior Calla Tucker and AP Biology teacher Eric Martin misinterpreted as dance practice, leading to exaggerated movements and laughs from the audience.
According to junior Emma Filley, the show stood out from others she had seen before.
“I thought Nick Wilkins was really, really funny,” Filley said. “I especially liked the skit where they had to sit in four chairs, each with a different theme.”
The show also included “Oscar Winning Moment” where a scene was paused so one actor could deliver an award winning performance. English II Honors teacher Jeff Jeff Montgomery gave a dramatic speech about an onomatopoeia machine and its importance in English class, followed by senior Hudson Kerr singing about everything he could do with his own onomatopoeia machine, turning a random idea into a full performance.
One of the more physical games was “Four Square,” where actors sat in chairs with specific quirks, such as only being able to opera sing, scream laugh or act like a Canadian. As they rotated chairs, they had to continue a conversation while staying in character, which often led to funny misunderstandings.
The audience also watched “PowerPoint Karaoke,” where performers gave presentations using slides they had never seen before. With the theme of a first date, the actors described strange images on the screen and eventually turned the story into extraterrestrial beings taking over, showing how quickly improv can shift directions.
Each of the sections were completely made up on the spot, as is in the case of traditional improv shows like WIT’s.
“Each show is just an improv routine, so we just make literally all parts of the production up as we go,” senior Julia Clebsch said.
While Westlake Theatre itself has always been a tight-knit community, for some WIT is just as strong.
“I think I just joined WIT originally because it looked like a lot of fun. The theatre group is already such a nice community, and WIT can sometimes be even more tightly-knit,” Clebsch said. “Sometimes the jokes land, and sometimes they don’t. We hope the audience will want to come back.”
