Arts

Andover Night Live Brings “Lovin’” Back

Putting an Andover twist on “Saturday Night Live,” Under the Bed (UTB), Andover’s improvisational comedy troupe, packed Kemper Auditorium twice on Saturday night with two shows of Andover Night Live (ANL).

The sketch comedy show was structured with a similar format to “SNL,” featuring an intro montage, digital shorts, Weekend Update, live sketches and a musical interlude by the band Doran Doran, which consists of Arthur Doran ’15, Noah Hornik ’15, Hemang Kaul ’13, Co-Head of UTB, Sophia Lloyd-Thomas ’14 and Jackie Murray ’13.

“Everyone in the audience should expect to leave with a six-pack because their laughter is going to be the best ab workout of their lives,” said Kristin Mendez ’13, a member of UTB, before the show.

Even though UTB usually performs solely improv, ANL is different because the sketches were prepared.

“ANL is all planned out before with guidelines. In a lot of ways, this is a lot harder. You have to do a lot of prep, including the writing, and once you’re on stage you have that burden of not forgetting your lines,” said Patrick Naughter ’13, a member of UTB. “We try to curb this by saying that our written materials are just the guidelines and that we should stick to the overall idea of our sketches, but we feel free to do a little improv while we’re at it.”

The show began with Pearson Goodman ’13, Co-Head of UTB, delivering a monologue as Head of School John Palfrey. He talked about his love for Twitter, touched upon the new calendar change and even took questions from the audience.

“This year I’ve instituted a major calendar change, a curveball if you will. Think you’re going get a break to study for your finals? Nope! Are you international and you want to go home? Well you can say konnichiwa to that idea!” said Goodman during his impersonation of Palfrey.

Despite technical difficulties transitioning from Palfrey’s speech to the introduction video during the second show, the UTB crew nonetheless kept the audience entertained with off-the-cuff jokes.

“Hemang just started making jokes in the meantime. He was so funny. He could play off of it really well. He was cool as a cucumber under pressure. He started commenting on the mouse and how it was looking for cheese. It was just brilliant,” said Hallie Bletzer ’15, an audience member.

Next, Goodman and Kaul delivered a satirical weekend update that featured Katherine Seelye, author of the recent “New York Times” article “School Vote Stirs Debate on Girls as Leaders,” who was played by Mendez. Brendan O’Connell ’13 performed a unique take on the groundskeeper from “Caddyshack” as Andover’s assistant groundskeeper talking about the recent ban on tennigolf.

However, the highlight of the show seemed to be the troupe’s original song “Andover Lovin’ 2.” A sequel to “Andover Lovin’,” which first debuted at ANL in 2011, it featured Goodman, Kaul and Vincent Mocco ’15. The song, which followed Kaul, an admissions officer, was essentially a long-winded answer to Mocco’s original question, “What is Andover really all about?”

Kaul followed with the catchy chorus of “Andover, we are all about the love; we get more freaky than you ever could dream of. We’re not just some prep school that don’t have fun, ‘cause things get weird when our work is done!”

“From where I sat, there wasn’t one performer who stole the show, but the palpable chemistry among the group made the whole night magic,” wrote CC Robinson, Instructor in English and Faculty Advisor to UTB in an e-mail to The Phillipian. “That is a tribute to each member of Under the Bed, but especially to the leadership of Hemang and Pearson.”