On April 19, the Kennedy’s All-State Speech and Improv Team will present a performance in the Black Box Theater, featuring a mix of unscripted speech and improvisational comedy. The event is directed by alumni Logan Pratt who is leading the team for the second year. 

“There are certain tricks and strategies they can employ that can help make the games more enjoyable to perform and watch,” Pratt said.

The speech segment is a public speaking competition where participants gather topics with little to no preparation. Instead of lines to speak, the students think as they go.

“I wasn’t very confident in my ability to improv at auditions, but afterwards, I kind of fell in love with it,” sophomore Maddy Gilchrist said. 

For improv, performers are given little to no time to prepare for their skit. It’s an acting scene, instead of just speaking on a stage. Sometimes the students are given no prompt at all and are forced to create a story and act it out in the moment.

“Actors are given two minutes of preparation time and may have even seen some of the prompts before. But for improv night they are given no prep time. I think the whole magic is that they are up there thinking off the top of their heads,” Pratt said. 

The students in the speech and improv team include juniors Izzy Westercamp, Onnika Hallam and Kloud Smith, sophomores Nick Hansen, Dallas Keller and Maddy Gilchrist and foreign exchange student Amalie Jorck. 

“These students really stepped up and committed to learning and growing as both improvers and performers,” Pratt said.

Speech and improv focus on the development of acting skills as well as the time spent participating in group activities and performances.

“I really enjoyed it and I think it really helped develop me as a performer both in improv but also making new voices and different physicalities,” Jorck said.