Members of Fishbowl Improv and Backburner Sketch Comedy pose for a group photo after last year’s Fish Fry comedy show. Credit: George Worley
Aptly titled “The Fish Fry,” an upcoming comedy show will combine the talents of Fishbowl Improv and Backburner Sketch Comedy this weekend.
Fishbowl Improvisational Comedy Club and Backburner Sketch Comedy Club will host the seventh annual Fish Fry comedy show at the Ohio Union’s Traditions Room on Friday. George Worley, a fourth-year in biomedical engineering and Backburner’s president, said this year’s show will merge improv-based games and prewritten sketches, with all performers prioritizing the widely regarded “yes, and…” approach to live comedy.
“This Friday is a collaboration between us and Fishbowl Improv,” Worley said. “It’s an opportunity for members to meet each other and to kind of build those bonds between comedy groups. The show itself is a mix of both of our comedy forms.”
Mary Mahoney, a fourth-year in film studies and Fishbowl’s president, said the show will also include a new format of comedy called “skimprov,” which was created by both groups and blends sketch and improvisational comedy together in an interactive, game-like way.
“Usually, we’ll have a Fishbowl member run out in the hall and write one half of a sketch, like just one person’s lines,” Mahoney said. “They come back in and read the lines that they wrote, and then a Backburner person has to improvise their lines on the other side of the conversation. So it’s really pushing each other out of our comfort [zones] and trying the other type of comedy.”
Thanks to skimprov, attendees can expect to see both clubs’ members branch out and try new things, Mahoney said.
“It’s fun to see each group do what they’re great at, and it’s also kind of silly to see them do what they’re not known for,” Mahoney said. “It’s sort of a different, unique thing.”
The show is expected to be a 50-50 split of what typical Fishbowl and Backburner shows would look like, except this time members of each club can voluntarily participate in Fishbowl’s improv games and/or perform in Backburner’s curated sketches, Worley said.
“[During rehearsal] both of us field stuff we typically run, so obviously, we’re running sketch as they’re running improv,” Worley said. “Just the same kind of games, same general sketch length and structure [as] what we usually do. So yeah, 50-50 is a pretty good breakdown.”
This opportunity for role reversal can be nerve-wracking leading up to the main event, Mahoney said.
“It’s funny because I imagine for Backburner, they’re probably like, ‘Oh gosh, we’re gonna do improv,’ and for Fishbowl it’s, ‘Shoot, I have to memorize lines.’” Mahoney said. “It’s literally the opposite of each other.”
Worley said Fish Fry is meant to be a welcoming space for members to try new styles of comedy they wouldn’t commonly experiment with, and viewers should expect to see some comedic sparks fly.
“I think there’s still some hesitation from some members, but a lot of the time it’s this free space to do something we wouldn’t normally do,” Worley said. “That being said, throughout the year, we do acting exercises. So a lot of the time that’s running an improv game or running some other exercise, that’s basically what we do for Fish Fry as well. It’s just a lot more concentrated around Fish Fry.”
Fishbowl and Backburner make up a comedy family at Ohio State, Worley said. When the two groups come together, he said there’s a genuine sense of reunion; of course, the common goal of making others laugh helps drive this sentiment.
“It’s like you going over [to] a cousin’s house or something, and you got just a bunch of fun cousins that you don’t get to see,” Worley said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I kind of know these people, but I don’t see him a ton.’ We get a bunch of new friends, or we get to go hang out with people. I think a lot of it’s very social. We’re excited to put on a show.”
Mahoney said anyone is welcome to attend the show, so long as they come prepared to see something fresh from Ohio State’s comedy scene and surrender to the fun.
“If you’ve been to a Fishbowl show and if you’ve been to a Backburner show, it’s like if you slammed the two together, so it’s like 50% improv, 50% sketch, 100% fun for the whole family,” Mahoney said.
Doors to The Fish Fry will open at 7 p.m., though performances begin at 7:30 p.m. More information about the event can be found on Backburner’s or Fishbowl’s respective Instagram pages.
