Tiny green plastic army figurines and a Dungeons & Dragons map board sit on a shelf in a small, partitioned room in the Abso office in the L.A. Pittenger Student Center basement. Members of Abso, Ball State University's self-proclaimed "premier comedy troupe," often reference them and use them in some of their sketches, group members said.
Greg Dunn, senior telecommunications major and Abso president, said he stumbled across one prop - an old cheerleading trophy - outside an apartment building last May.
"Some girl was cleaning out her apartment, and I brought it in to practice to get ideas off it for sketches," Dunn said.
Although Abso is less active this year than it has been in the past, the group rehearses between one and three days a week and plans to perform regularly again in the fall, senior creative writing major Joe Walsh said.
It made weekly appearances at Late Night last semester and performed in a reunion show with Abso alumni from the past 15 years in September, sophomore Chris Tupling said.
The group will make its spring debut at 8:30 p.m. today in Art Museum Room 217 with the presentation of "The Horrors of Germ Warfare." Similar to other shows Abso has performed, "The Horrors of Germ Warfare" is based on audience suggestions for skits, which the group plays with directly, Walsh said.
The title is for the show opener, in which "Zombie" has become the cool new minority, but the rest of the show is all improvised, Dunn said.
Admission for "The Horrors of Germ Warfare" is 99 cents, which Dunn said is to pay for the group's props, such as King Arthur toy swords, and its fall comedy festival.
"I just thought it'd be funny to have rolls of pennies at the admission table instead of charging a whole dollar," he said.
The sketches performed at the live shows have not been rehearsed at group practices, Tupling said.
"Practice sketches are a one-time only thing, but it helps to raise your comfort level," he said. "You learn to trust other members of the group. If you can't think of something off the top of your head, you can trust them to take over."
Tupling, a music education major, said he often uses improvisational skills learned in his music classes at Abso performances.
Dunn said he attributed the comedic rhythm of the group to the similar personalities of the group members. Dunn has formed a close bond with the other five Abso members, he said.
"We're all very sick mentally," Dunn said. "The kind of people who do improv well are those types of kids who spent a lot of time alone as a child. They come up with a lot of imaginary friends."
Although improvisational comedy may look easy on Comedy Central improvisation shows such as "Whose Line is it Anyway?", it's difficult to improvise in front of a live audience, Dunn said.
"[Improv] is fairly difficult, but it gets easier when you have people around you that you can trust," he said. "No one in the group has really hung anyone out to dry, like telling a quick joke or forcing someone to freeze up on stage."
While Tupling gains from the audience participation aspect of improv comedy, he said he gets the most satisfaction out of improvising with friends from the group in everyday situations.
"I layer everything with sarcasm," Tupling said. "I don't like to give people straight answers because it makes things too easy ... I told the other guys that I love them. I don't actually love them that much, but at the same time I love them with all my heart."
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