On Friday, April 27, students and community members gathered in the Events Barn for
Yodapez Presents: The Taco Bell Show.
Yodapez is an improv comedy group, and their popularity with students was evident from the large crowd that filled the Barn.
As the crowd assembled and settled, people helped themselves to the tacos and burritos provided with the event. Many eyed the table full of prizes next to the stage. During the group’s introduction, they explained that part of the audience’s duty throughout the night was to offer suggestions to the performers. The group distributed prizes to audience members whose suggestions they chose to use. Competition proved fierce, as the crowd shouted loudly at every opportunity to offer the performers a suggestion.
The show was propelled by a series of improvisational stunts. At the beginning of most segments, the group asked for audience input. Performers asked for a random place or relationship. For example, one exercise took place on a ferris wheel, another was a conversation between a father and son, and one stunt switched between a port-a-potty, a volcano, and the Hunger Games. The absurdity contributed to the comedic success of the event, but the creative and witty cast drew the most laughs. With sparse information to begin with, the performers spontaneously built scenes with depth and humor. In the port-a-potty scene, a plot quickly developed; three people were locked in a port-a potty, they had all dropped their phones down the toilet, and they were trying to decide who would go down to retrieve the lost phones.
In another segment, the audience wrote random nouns on slips of paper, which were then scattered around the floor of the stage. Cast members built a scene by picking up slips of paper every few seconds and incorporating the content to the plot. A princess and her mother discussed drug use, growing up, the succession of the throne, and sexuality all within a minute or so. For the finale, the performers requested “something you find at CVS” and settled on floss to center their exercise. The final stunt, “Sex with Yodapez,” consisted of the group members standing in a line and taking turns sharing sexual jokes about the chosen item. In this case, the performers took turns telling jokes that all began with: “Sex with me is like floss…” The rapidity with which the performers came up with the one-liners made the show all the more impressive.
The improvisational comedy fostered a sense of connection between the audience and the performers unlike any other. Both parties were equally uncertain of the direction the show would take, and that suspense bound the room together. The jokes arose organically, and were unique to the specific context of the moment. In the midst of the norovirus outbreak and upcoming final exams, Yodapez gave the student body a much needed dose of comedy.
