The Tripod

The Fred Pfeil Community Project was full of laughs and talent on Friday, Feb. 6, during The Moveable Joints spring semester premiere show. The six Joints, Chris Eldin '10, Josh Cohen '10, Alexandra Kokesh '09, Vince Moore '11, Sean Zimmer '11, and Ryan Haney '10, were announced one by one, like boxers. Once all the applause had died down, Haney, the announcer for the night, started the show with "The Dating Game."

The only female of the group, Kokesh, played the role of the bachelorette, a nun who had just left the convent and was on her search for love, and three male Joints were the bachelors. While Kokesh waited outside, the audience picked roles for each of the bachelors. After much screaming of suggestions, the three bachelors consisted of Benjamin Franklin (Cohen), a man who thought he was a dinosaur (Zimmer), and Flavor Flav (Moore). At the end of the game, Kokesh was successful in guessing all three roles and chose to take her chances on Flava Flav.

Other games that The Moveable Joints played were "Standing, Sitting, and Lying Down", "60 - 30 - 10", "Entrances and Exits", "Actually", and "Director." "Standing, Sitting, and Lying Down" consisted of Kokesh, Haney and Eldin in a scenario at a farm with a maggot infestation. The point of this game was to have one person standing, one sitting, and one lying down at all times. This game caused quite a bit of laughter when one person quickly stood up and another had to fall to the ground, claiming that he could find maggots everywhere. The game ended when one of the sons on the magic sheep farm hugged his "ma" to death.

"60 - 30 - 10" turned into a very fast-paced game when Haney and Kokesh acted out a scene about barnacles in 60 seconds, compressed that scene into 30 seconds, and finally into 10 seconds.

"Entrances and Exits" became a bit confusing when each of the four Joints playing either entered or exited the scene upon hearing a word that was his or her cue. The four verbal cues suggested by the audience, were "meander," "superfluous," "milk," and "ahh!" The scene that the four Joints played in revolved around the word "tiger." A tiger owner (Zimmer) told his friend (Cohen) that his tiger enjoyed eating children so during the scene, the tiger owner's friend encountered a small boy (Haney), later named Bartholomew St. James. During the scene, each Joint entered and exited on his or her cue, each time with a legitimate reason. For example, when the cue, "milk," was spoken during the scene, the Joint with the assigned cue exited "to get a net." At the end of the scene, Bartholomew's mother (Kokesh) signed him over to the tiger owner to join the circus.

"Actually" was a game that consisted of many tangents around the subject of noodles, yet another suggestion by an audience member.  Moore and Zimmer played this game and each time they heard a clap, supplied by Cohen, of course, the Joint who had just displayed an action or said a sentence would have to either do a different action or change the subject of the statement such as when eating noodles, a spoon, fork, and finally, a pitchfork was settled on to replace the chopsticks originally used.

The last game before auditions was called "Director." Cohen, Eldin and, Moore played actors and Haney played the director. The name of the "newest blockbuster" was called "Lies and Deceit," as suggested by the audience, and the three actors acted out a scene. Upon completion of the scene, the director stepped in and offered suggestions to change the scene. After the final suggestion, Cohen was slithering on the floor like a true snake "with a hint of cobra" and Moore "went nude."

After the presentation of The Moveable Joints, a crowd of people followed the established Joints into Trinity Commons to play several games to display their potential in the hopes of gaining membership to the campus improv group.

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