A Comedy of Engineers

In the unscripted world of improv, Case students find fun, teamwork and an unexpected education.

By Eddie Kerekes

The lights go dark. Energetic music begins to play. The crowd claps along as if part of the performance. Suddenly, an actor emerges onstage and shouts, “Welcome to IMPROVment, Case Western Reserve University’s premier short-form improv comedy troupe!”

An hour of high-energy comedy sketches follow. Much of it is staged by students studying theater or the liberal arts, as you might expect. But the cast also includes senior Alex Gordon and junior Andy Ogrinc—chemical engineering majors—as well as junior Jack Routhier, an aspiring biomedical engineer. In fact, students studying engineering make up about a quarter of the 20-person troupe.

What’s going on here? Shouldn’t engineering majors be home reviewing Maxwell’s equations for their next exam, or brushing up on applications of the Navier-Stokes equation? They say they came for the fun and comradery and, to their surprise, ended up learning skills they suspect will make them better engineers.

“Being involved in improv has really helped my soft skills,” said Ogrinc, adding that he’s become adept at improvisation on and off the stage.

“I’m incredibly comfortable giving a presentation in front of people with almost zero preparation,” he explained. “I’m very

comfortable leading a discussion with a bunch of people who don’t always agree. I’m very comfortable throwing an idea out there and, if no one likes it, throwing it away in the trash.”

He’s also no longer so afraid to fail.

“If you mess up, the audience is rooting harder for you,” he said. “So then when I get it right, there’s an even bigger payoff.”

Whether they joined the troupe intentionally or fell into it on a whim, these aspiring engineers are using IMPROVment to further their skills in both comedy and life.

The troupe began on campus 16 years ago. IMPROVment stages a free performance every Saturday night during the academic year in the Eldred Black Box Theater on Case Quad. Similar to the TV series Whose Line is it Anyway? the shows offer quick improvisations based on audience suggestions, usually with Routhier playing an on-stage keyboard.

One oft-requested game is “Hoedown.” Four improvisers are given a suggestion from the audience and need to sing a four-line verse following an AABB rhyme scheme and the piano’s melody. The first three lines build up to the punchline. Like this:

It’s my third semester here at Case Western Reserve.

And having a bike on campus is something I really deserve.

But there’s one thing, I give it 0 out of 10,

Riding my bike along they say, ‘Get out of the way, freshman!

Improvisers also entertain by reacting to unexpected situations, a core principle of the craft. Onstage, an improviser might make a physical or verbal mistake. The mistake then becomes the main joke of the scene.

Former IMPROVment member Brett DiCello ’18, who graduated from Case with biomedical engineering and theater degrees, likens it to the excitement people feel when they go to concerts and see the performers mess up.

“We live for mistakes,” he said. “The whole idea of a scene is making a big mistake and reveling in it the whole time.”

From left to right: Andy Ogrinc, Alex Gordon and Jack Routhier.

Building a scene, like building a house

Another core tenet of improv is teamwork. Gordon, a native of Deerfield, Illinois, compared the making of a great scene to building a house brick by brick. Each performer brings his or her own bricks and needs to figure out how their jokes and ideas fit in with the rest of the group at that moment. Oftentimes, other performers will approach a scene from a completely different perspective.

“You can’t do a good scene by yourself,” said Routhier, who hails from Westlake, Ohio. “It’s all about teamwork.”

While the performers never end up building anything, they expect to apply this experience in a professional setting. Engineers need to deal with unexpected scenarios and work with others, they know, whether it’s tackling a team project, convincing the financial department to increase a budget or helping a customer figure out what they want.

DiCello, an Associate Development Engineer at Invacare in Elyria, Ohio, was recently on the other side of the interviewing table, looking for new co-op hires. He said he advises students to avoid talking about school in their interviews and focus instead on other interesting parts of their lives. The young people he was most impressed by did just that, and got the job.

DiCello, who grew up outside of Pittsburgh, knew of improv comedy from a community center instructor, but Routhier learned about it when he arrived at Case.

Ogrinc’s entry into the group was a bit of an accident. He explained that a friend, who is now in the cast, invited him to join them at auditions his freshman year.

“I was just planning on playing improv games and never thinking about it again,” he said. “I actually didn’t want to do theater at Case Western. I wanted to be focused entirely on engineering. Then I accidentally got a callback. Then I accidentally got on.”

Then he got hooked on improv—on his way to becoming a Case engineer.

Find showtimes at http://improv.case.edu/