The Huntsville High School improv team T.O.P. (Totally on Point) came away from the Canadian Improv Games with a top ten finish last week in their first-ever berth at the national competition.
The team – Couper Ebbs-Picken, Andrew Gordon, Piers Hancock, Melina Lisi-Orfao, Grace Murphy, Sophie Nickerson, Hailey Scott, and Colin Welsh with coach Kim Russel-Brooks – represented Sudbury and Northern Ontario at the Canadian Improv Games 2016 National Tournament at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, March 23-26.
Eighteen teams from across Canada each competed in one of three preliminary rounds that held the ticket to the finals. The Huntsville team competed in the second night of preliminaries, coming away with a third place score that night which placed them tenth overall.
The teams were required to compete in four out of five events – the two required events of ‘life’ and ‘theme’ and two of their choice, in Huntsville’s case ‘story’ and ‘style’. For ‘theme’ the team was given a word and had to explore its meaning. For the remaining three – exploring a person’s ‘life’ in a sincere way; performing within their chosen ‘style’ of melodrama, and constructing a narrated ‘story’ with a beginning, middle and end – they did ask-fors.
“An ask-for is when we ask the audience a specific question and use their answer to base our scene off of,” explained team member Hailey Scott. “For example, for our story scene we asked the audience for a noise and what we got back was “ooh” and we had to incorporate the sound ooh into lots of things in our scene.”
Armed with that limited direction, the team then had only a quick 10-second huddle to spill out some ideas, decide on a direction and determine the stakes – why the audience would care – before launching into four minutes of improv for each event.
The HHS Improv team during their ‘style’ event at the Canadian Improv Games. Image: Bill Nickerson
To an outsider, the prospect of getting on stage to perform with such minimal preparation might seem daunting, but to these young actors it’s exciting and energizing.
“There’s so much positive energy,” said Scott. “We practice our huddles in advance so we are quick at it and we have an idea of what’s good and bad. It just comes with practice.”
The national event also includes several days of workshops to help participants hone their improv skills. “People come from all over Canada to judge and referee and teach workshops, and groups from across Canada participate,” said Scott. “There’s also something called toast and jam which is a morning warm up where people from across Canada get together to play improv games. It’s nice to get to know them outside of the competition.”
View a short clip of one of the team’s performances here:
The team earned their spot at the nationals by placing first at the Sudbury and Northern Ontario regional competition, winning with a score of 917, 34 points ahead of second place Bracebridge Muskoka Lakes Secondary School. Team member Hailey Scott also picked up individual honours as the Sudbury Theatre Centre Award winner – and award that goes to “someone who showed a positive take on the games and was always ready to participate,” she said.
The Canadian Improv Games have been providing high school students with a place to explore improvisation since 1977, and the Huntsville High School team has been involved for five years.
For anyone considering trying out for the team, Scott said it’s worth it. “It’s so much fun and you build a fantastic community. You can let yourself loose and you don’t have to worry about anyone judging you.”
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