About once a month at Olivet Nazarene University, you might be able to hear students, parents, and even faculty laughing their tails off somewhere on campus. The setting might change sometimes, but the atmosphere sure doesn’t.
Those laughs are caused by 11 students who love to brighten people’s days with varieties of humor. They call themselves “Spoons 4 Forks,” and they’re an improvisation comedy club on Olivet’s campus. According to a recent article by WUSF, improv comedy is gaining popularity around the country at in-person shows and even with content shown online.
One of the members of Spoons 4 Forks is Jace Hunt, a sophomore at Olivet. Hunt has been on the team since his first semester of freshman year, and is enjoying every second of it.
“We have the privilege of sharing our God-given gifts and talents with the source being comedy improv,” Hunt said.
A typical Spoons 4 Forks show has a lot of different moving parts. It first opens with an introduction video to get the crowd going. Hunt shares a role in filming as well as editing the video. Throughout the show, the team plays about 11 different improv games with each member typically participating in three each. The show then closes with “longform,” which is a more drawn-out scene that can vary from show to show.
In the early 2000s, Spoons 4 Forks started as an event through Green Room Theatre Company, which is the student-run theatre program at Olivet. Even though Spoons 4 Forks broke off as a distinctive club, theatre still plays a major role within the club. A lot of the current members of Spoons are involved in theatre, Hunt being one of them.
“I think almost 8 of us are in theatre,” Hunt said. He also noted there are even a few members that participate in Orpheus Choir and Gospel Choir together. “There’s a lot of overlap [with us].”
There are a lot of different skills that students involved in theatre can bring to the table as members of Spoons 4 Forks. Hunt expressed the importance of having improv skills in theatre and how it relates to his time with Spoons 4 Forks.
“A lot of theatre is kind of improv,” Hunt explained. “You make up things on the fly. Especially if things go wrong, you have to be good at thinking on your feet.”
Taking part in improv comedy comes with some psychological benefits. According to Psychology Today, doing improv yourself promotes brain connectivity and reduces stress.
Spoons 4 Forks has new members joining them every year, and there is a big process when it comes to selecting the “newbies,” as the seasoned members call them. First off, there’s open practices. These are open to everybody to come and just give improv comedy a shot. If someone really enjoys it, they can audition to become a member of Spoons 4 Forks. Shortly thereafter, they have callbacks, and then the team decides on one or two people to join Spoons 4 Forks.
Hunt went through this process himself. In fact, he wanted to be on the team so badly, that before he auditioned, he made it a point to get to know every single person on the team so he could leave a good impression.
“Looking back, I absolutely did not need to do that,” Hunt laughed and said. “Your audition kind of holds your own.”
Spoons 4 Forks has been such a great outlet for Hunt to get hands-on experience in the field. Another example of someone using their skills outside the classroom is Wesley Curell and his expertise in managing Live Audio.
