Last spring, Smith Improv Komedy Organization of Smith (SIKOS) reached its prime. Weeks before the pandemic hit, their weekly improv comedy shows broached 80 attendees, crowds larger than ever before. President Ruth Penberthy ‘21, said she wanted to ask the audience members, “Are you sure you want to be here? This is undergraduate improv comedy!”
Nell Adkins ‘23 joined in jokingly, “You could be anywhere in the world right now, but you’re in CC 103/104. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”
For all their self-deprecating humor, SIKOS is proud of where they were pre-pandemic. Last spring they had been invited to perform at a comedy event at UMass Amherst, which often hosts visiting professional comedians. Both Penberthy and Adkins described the loss of this high as “devastating.”
Yet SIKOS is a tight-knit six-person comedic team, and this has ensured their continued success over the past year. Rather than weekly improv shows, their work has turned to producing virtual content that they post on Instagram. Recent sketches include “SIKOS Reads Mean Tweets,” a Smith-themed spoof version of Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update and an advertisement for “Girl Boss University.”
Rosie Poku ‘22 described writing these sketches as “a whole new form of comedy for us.” Improv, which is founded on spontaneity, can be seen as a far cry from planned-out sketch comedy writing.
Adkins insisted that the elements of improv they love are alive and well. She described how they brainstorm their ideas on group Zoom calls with the same randomness as in their improv shows.
“We talk about random stuff and if it makes us laugh we’re like, that’s a good idea, we should make a video about that,” she said. “Instead of putting it together in the moment, we just put it together after the fact.”
Penberthy disagreed with this spin, saying that she much prefers SIKOS as an improv group without this additional element of sketch writing. She lamented the difficulty of comedic writing, “You watch an episode of SNL and you’re like, ‘man, they had a whole week?’ That’s not a lot of time, but these professionals had a whole week, and it’s not even a great episode. It’s incredibly hard to be a comedic writer!”
In spite of these changes to their medium, SIKOS has found ways to continue their beloved work. In addition to their sketches, they hosted a few workshops last semester, including for a HONS event and the Mwangi Cultural Center, and they’re planning a virtual live improv show towards the end of the semester. While they haven’t accepted any new members (they consider the audition process too important to be conducted over Zoom) they’ve received a lot of interest from other Smithies and hope to welcome new members next fall.
Until then, they plan to continue their weekly Friday meetings with the six current SIKOS members, five of whom meet in person on campus, Zooming Adkins in on someone’s laptop. “It’s just a meme!” Adkins joked. “It’s really funny — I love going every week, it’s just so funny to see all of you together in a room, and I’m just a talking head in a computer. That is comedy gold.”
(Pictured: SIKOS)
