This semester, ACHS has a new class: an improv class.

According to hideouttheatre.com, “Improvisation, or improv, is a form of live theatre in which the plot, characters and dialogue of a game, scene or story are made up in the moment. Often improvisers will take a suggestion from the audience, or draw on some other source of inspiration to get started.”

Students who took Fine Arts Appreciation may be familiar with the term, since improv was a subject that was discussed and practiced in the class, alongside other fine arts topics and subjects. However, this new class is solely based on the live performance concept.

“There are three different forms of improve that we work on. There’s short form, which is kind of like “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?”; so it’s improv games,” theater teacher and fine arts department chair Wanda Teddy said. “There’s extended form, so you come up with this theme and you develop a scene to get an acting performance. And you incorporate what’s called a herald into that. And then there’s improv anywhere. You talk about how the business world is really sending people to improv companies so they are able to build their confidence in front of people. We talk about how can we use improv in other places besides just a performance space.”

Junior Weston Fox is taking the class this semester, and seems to enjoy it.

“It teaches you good social skills, and about adjusting into the situation your in, responding under pressure. We play a lot of cool, fun games, just being yourself,” said Fox.

If you need a fine arts credit in order to graduate, or if you are shy around people and not good at thinking on your feet, or even if you just want to have fun with a great group of people, both Teddy and Fox agree that you should enroll in the new improvisation class for next school year.