Variations On A Theme Or VOAT: Done By The Rollins Improv Players

For my on campus review I decided to see a Variations On a Theme, or VOAT, done by the Rollins Improv Players; The theme of this particular show was Strength. A VOAT is a long form show in which the players ask the audience for suggestions involving the theme in order to create scenes that involve the given suggestions. After the players are given suggestions, they begin to share their own stories which are then used as influence for new scenes. Throughout the rounds the players make connections from the words and ideas given from the audience and stories given from within the group. This beginning process of the show is very important, because you see so many connections from this process and on throughout the show you can tell that the

Instead of saying “yes”, or saying “yes and…”, an improviser can say “no”, however, this is bad improv technique and will keep the scene from moving forward. In one scene in particular, Jon and David played brothers who were looking for a family member’s urn. David asked Jon to pull out his flashlight multiple times and in different ways each time. Each time Jon was asked for a flashlight, there was a problem with the light. Jon gave David a small amount of information but overall stalled the scene and kept it from moving forward. The improvisers in this scene were very experienced and were most likely playing a game with each other, however, in other situations this may have confused another player and cause them to feel unsupported. During the show, there were a few obvious gags from players. Shey and David played in several scenes together, however, some of these scenes featured the hot button issue of sexism in the workplace. During one of the scenes, David continually said “that’s what she said”, seemingly in effort to get a laugh from the audience. However, the players involved in this scene did well to not only justify the gag, but also to explore the idea that sexism in the workplace will not be tolerated. To finish the scene, Shey ended it by firing David because of his sexist behavior. This kind of improv is very enlightening, even though one of the players made the choice to do something that is traditionally bad improv, it worked very well with the efforts to parallel real life issues on stage. Lastly, a very difficult and awkward scene to watch happened to be one in which one of the players made another do something she obviously felt uncomfortable doing. Pimping is always uncomfortable and uncalled for in improv, it can make another player feel very uncomfortable and unsupported in their team. Lena, the improviser who was pimped, was called in