The Improv Troupe held this year’s first Coffee House event on Friday evening in Manzanita Hall, followed by open-mic performances by the troupe and audience members.

The troupe performed a series of improvisational games for their audience. One such game, “Freeze Tag,” in which different members of the troupe can take another’s place and continue the scene in a new direction, involved two members of the Improv Troupe at a time.

Active audience participation was encouraged, particularly in games such as “Blind Line”, in which the audience writes 16 generic lines for the actors to use, and “Scenes from a Hat,” where members of the troupe must act out scenes suggested by the audience.

“I thought it was really funny,” said Shilpa Repakula (9), a first time audience-member. “I know most of the people, so it was [even] funnier.”

Improv Troupe member Anna Kendall (11) was enthusiastic about the first Coffee House of the year.

“It’s always a little rough getting back into it, but I think we have a good troupe this year. We lost a lot of funny people, [but] it was a good start to a new year,” she said.

After the Improv Troupe’s performance and a five-minute break, the open-mic performances began.

Senior Justin Gerard, who played the guitar and sang, thought it was a great experience.

“It’s like my third time performing,” Justin said, explaining how he felt the first time he performed at Coffee House. “The first time you do something that you really enjoy, it’s [a] great feeling. I felt like I could really connect with the audience so that was really nice. I was nervous, but that’s part of it.“

In preparation for their performance, the troupe met around two hours before the event to do warm up exercises, play improvisational games, and do an energy hum.

The troupe met after the performances to set the details for their following event.