Members of the Scene Monkeys improvisation group performed two shows in the Rugby Auditorium May 13.

“There was just so much adrenaline and energy on stage, and it felt like all the monkeys were on the same page,” Talia Leftkowitz ’17 said.

The experience of performing in front of an audience was very different from practices with just members of the group earlier in the year, Leftkowitz said.

“In rehearsal, it’s really hard to tell if you’re doing things right, so when we finally had an audience, it felt really good to have the huge reactions and support from the audience that we didn’t have in our small rehearsals,” Leftkowitz said.

Students who were interested in joining the Scene Monkeys auditioned back in November.

Auditions entailed participation in improv games. Scene Monkeys have been rehearsing for the show since January.

“Any improv show can have a few little moments of comedy, but our shows this year were characterized by consistent, hearty laughs and a lot of really good scene work as well,” Carlos Guanche ’16 said. “Our narrative was consistent and logically constructed, meaning we were able to go for a lot more jokes than if we just slapped some basic characters together and then hoped something funny would come out of it.”

The troop performed around 20 different skits, each with a different set of rules. One of these such skits was “Fish Bowl,” in which the monkeys had to incorporate random phrases into their scene that were written by audience members prior to the show.

“I feel like the group just really worked well together,” Guanche said. “It felt like a team, full of some of the coolest folks on campus, and I really just had an incredible time being a part of it.”