As the auditorium filled with students and parents, Elon University’s Instant Laughter refined their performances, excited to entertain their evening audiences. 

The improv troupe performed at Yeager Recital Hall Sept. 27 for Family Weekend. The show consisted of games where cast members are given prompts that they have to act out and build off of. 

The show opened with all cast members going onstage to play a round of “Jeopardy”, where performers give a question to a prompt. 

“Katy Perry,” a performer prompted.

“Who’s going to walk through that door right now!” shouted another. 

Though the pop star did not, in fact, walk through that door then, the audience still loved the performance.

This was just the beginning of a whole set of improv games Instant Laughter played throughout the night. Elon senior Seth Upchurch, who is a member of the troupe, said the set was determined from a much larger list of games. 

“Depending on the members, some games work better than others,” Upchurch said. 

The cast then played a game called Oracle, where two performers stand onstage and are not able to see or hear. Two other performers played a scene alongside them, tapping their shoulders to be given a word that had to be used in the scene.

The troupe also played games that involved the audience.

In one game, two audience members were chosen to help improvisers act out a scene. The catch was the improvisers could not move on their own. Instead, they had the volunteers tap them on the shoulder to turn their heads and tap their knees to take a step.

Anabelle Sumera-Decoret said that people often wonder what is expected of cast members.

“The focus comes in, basically, trying to tell a story that is based in a logical reality,” Sumera-Decoret said. “So that the audience is able to follow along and find the humor in it.”

To end the night, all the performers battled against each other. They performed scenes while trying not to include letters decided by the audience. They each had two chances to mess up before they were out of the game. In the end, it was only Upchurch standing.

“It really is a pleasure to just have something to laugh about,” Upchurch said, “especially nowadays.”

 Instant Laughter will be performing next at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 24 and 25 in Yeager Recital Hall.