Lancer Nation’s Improv Destination Imagination team, Five Guys, won their Regional competition on Saturday March 19. They beat out four other teams with their improv performance and instant challenge.
The team, consisting of junior Julia Fitzgibbons, senior Evan Plevinsky, sophomore Trevor Melanson, and senior Duncan Campbell was lead by coaches Eric Melanson and Craig Plevinsky. The team chose the improv challenge, Close Encounters.
“Our performance went really well,” Fitzgibbons said. “We have some things to improve, but I think overall it was one of our best runs.”
The team was given a list of 20 places to research in September and they had to pick 12 to submit to the judges. The judges then picked one place at random and the team had three minutes to come up with a skit about the place and a prop made of newspaper to go along with it. After three minutes the judges gave one team member a mysterious character to work into the skit without the rest of the team knowing.
“Our hopes for the competition were high,” Fitzgibbons said, “but we exceeded them and the team atmosphere was just so excited when we won.”
The Improv challenge doesn’t allow teams to have a prepared solution because they do not know the question they are going to be asked to answer until the day of the challenge. To prepare for the competition the team practices teamwork, brainstorming, and performing under pressure by running through practice performances.
Because of their win at the regional level the team heads to States for a chance to move on to Globals in Tennessee in May.
“We really want to go to Globals this year,” Evan Plevinsky said. “It would be a first for me and for the team.”
