The student driver was petrified.

Here she was, on her first lesson, carting around a blind driving instructor, a back seat boor who would not shut up and a scared guy who would not settle down. Then she got lost and pulled over by a cop.

To make matters worse, several dozen people in the Muskogee High School cafeteria laughed at her.

The student driver was Muskogee High School student Nicole Webster, carting around fellow students Ben Gibson and Joe Irwin. Her car was four desk chairs set up on one end of the cafeteria. The whole ordeal? Completely fabricated on the spot during the monthly Improv Night at Muskogee High School.

Drama students and members of the MHS Repertory Theatre perform a series of improvisational skits once a month in the cafeteria as a way to hone their acting skills, said MHS drama instructor Cat Trueblood.

“It’s a way for them to have some stage time, to get experience in front of an audience,” she said.

These performers are not skittish in their skits, coming up with their own dialogue, their own blocking, their own shtick on the spot. Their only props and scenery are a few desk chairs.

Student director Erin Cole said she and Repertory Theatre president Danny Padilla II come up with the ideas for the skits, sometimes calling each other at odd times.

“It’s Danny and I awake at 3 in the morning and saying, ‘I have an idea,’” Cole said.

She said she has a list of skits that could be presented at each performance and calls different performers to do them.

The students take it from there.

Before Tuesday night’s Improv began, Cole explained “tonight’s show is completely unscripted.”

“We also have characters in which some have mental issues, but we do not mean to offend anybody,” she warned.

Tuesday night’s performances began with The Hating Game, a variation of television’s Dating Game in which the contestants were the least likely people you’d want to date.

Freshman Lindsay Sholes was told to have a nervous tic. Webster was told to be a gold digger who wants money and debate student Alicia Slader was told to have anger management problems.

For the next skit, performers were to have a conversation completely in the form of a question. Anyone who answered with a statement were replaced with another questioner.

That’s the hardest act, Sholes said, adding that some Improv performers are masters at it.

Then came the “car game” in which different characters were put in a “car” made up of four chairs.

Sholes said the biggest challenge of doing the Improv is “keeping a straight face and stay in character.”

Gibson, a junior, said he likes the challenge of “being able to think off the top of my head.”

Trueblood said the Improv features students in her drama classes as well as members of the MHS Repertory Theater who are not in her drama classes. Drama students are graded on their performance, she said.

Padilla said he has fun doing the Improv.

“I get to hang out with my friends,” he said. “It just so happens all of them are great performers. We struggle together, we rise together, we fall together.”

Reach Cathy Spaulding at 918-684-2928 or Click Here to Send Email