Masque and Triangle, the umbrella organization over Student Theater, SMuTCo, Urban Theater and Ballet Club, set the stage for a year of comedy with their Student Showcase on Monday, September 3, at the Creative Arts House.

The show encouraged its audience to attend the groups’ Activity Fair tables, to audition for the companies as well as for the upcoming musical, Song for a New World, and play, Deathtrap, and, above all, to have a good time.

“It’s a great way for all our groups to show what we offer to the new students, and a great way for all the regular members to get back together,” senior Student Theater General Manager Jacey Heldrich said.

The show kicked off with three skits from Student Theater’s One Night Stands. “The Blueberry Hill Accord” satirized catty fights between stereotype teen girls. Unhappy with her friendship, one teen proposes a break-up, complete with a contract detailing what restaurants, activities, and, of course, boys are off-limits to both parties. In comparison to how “normal” people end friendships — which, according to senior Anne Slotnick’s character, is by talking behind each other’s backs — the portrayal of this odd fight was both biting and funny.

Experimental Theater then hit the stage with an abbreviated performance of their 30/60s, in which they perform 30 plays in an hour. The five high energy skits ranged from satirical – sophomore Ben Hoover and junior Josie Miller transformed Hansel and Gretel into missionaries — to plain absurd — Slotnick played a wife who discovers that her husband, Hoover, has hidden a man in their basement. “Report Cards” took on political themes: in the skit Heldrich divulges that the “report card” that junior Riley Croghan holds is not grades, but an order to report for a physical exam for the military service.

Charred Goosebeak, Colgate’s student improv group, lightened the mood with their set of games similar to the television show Whose Line is it Anyway? The games encouraged lots of audience participation and showcased the cunning of the troupe.

The audience was raucous during a skit where senior Jen Leen and sophomore Tessa Drake played ex-girlfriends trying to make each other jealous by bringing other (male) dates to a crazy wedding.

The two dates showed that even Charred Goosebeak’s fans are funny. The skit had a happy ending; Jen and Tessa chose to make up instead of pursue plans for world domination.

Heldrich was very pleased with the show.

“There were people here I’d never seen before,” Heldrich said, “which was the goal, and people who I had seen before, which was also the goal. I couldn’t be happier.”

For more information, or to sign up for the Masque and Triangle distribution list, e-mail the group’s secretary, Doris Yen.