While the basement of the Creative Arts House probably isn’t the first place you would consider spending your Saturday afternoon, the beloved improv comedy group Charred Goosebeak made it an energetic, welcoming environment with their performance “ROFL HOUSE.” At 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 23, the group showed up ready to kick off the event with a brand new skit called “Worst Ever.”

After brief introductions, the audience was asked to give the comedians a prompt: a profession. Once given a profession, the members would act out examples of how an incompetent person in that field would act. One profession that the group ran with was that of a stripper. Immediately after the prompt was thrown out by the audience, sophomore Griffin Fenady stepped forward and said, “Hi, son!” which certainly got the ball rolling.

Sophomore Michael Shea enjoyed the new skit.

“I laughed a lot during their ‘Worst Ever’ skit,” Shea said. “I also learned valuable lessons on how not to act in my future professional endeavors as a priest.” 

Next came a classic skit called “Half Life,” where the participating members perform for one minute and continually re-do the entire performance but in half the time. They start with one minute, and by the end are attempting to perform what they took a minute to do in only seven seconds. The scene took place at Applebee’s, which naturally elicited humor about microwaveable food and interactions between workers and managers.

Now, imagine running into your ex-lover at a wedding—the awkwardness, the drama, the tension. That was the premise of the next skit on the set list. This one involved two group members (who played the ex-lovers) and two audience volunteers (who played the ex-lovers’ new partners). While audience members were reluctant to volunteer at first, two brave souls eventually stepped up to let the skit take shape. One of the things that makes Goosebeak performances so entertaining is the audience involvement in each skit. It created a dynamic show that really paralleled the hilarious awkwardness that would accompany the situation in real life.

Freshman Matt Martinez-Sutton made his debut in the following skit titled “ABC,” where two members have to start each line of the performance with the next letter of the alphabet, starting with “A.” Martinez-Sutton and sophomore Nathan Sterne went through the skit as a male model and his blind fashion designer. Martinez-Sutton and Sterne played well off of one another and made a great impression on the audience.

The group then chose skits “What Are You Trying to Say?” and “Commando.” The former took place at the zoo, and played off the dynamic of a dramatic couple, and the latter was a series of mini skits that typically close the show. For “Commando,” the audience gives the group nouns to work with. The prompt “Webkinz” was one the group worked well with and got the entire group immediately involved.

Sophomore Ally Kriss is a regular at Goosebeak shows, and loves to support her friends in the group.

“Nathan Sterne and George Karamanoukian were on fire,” Kriss said.

With senior George Karamanoukian, the humor doesn’t stop after the show ends. After the show, he kept cracking jokes.

“George Karamanoukian…so hot—hottest guy I know, [aside] from Brian Casey,” Karamanoukian said.