Eastern Illinois University’s improv group, Hello Dali, hosted a performance Thursday night themed about “Stranger Things” for the group’s first show back for the semester.
The popular sci-fi horror show was chosen for the performance’s theme based on a suggestion from the audience. Hello Dali incorporated one liners about the new season of “Stranger Things” in the performance.
Hello Dali President Charlie Stauffer, a senior chemistry major, said the show is themed around something every week, but the theme isn’t always the focus of the show because of audience suggestions.
“Generally, our themed shows aren’t directly and completely correlated to the theme, but we try to include different games that kind of tie into it,” said Stauffer.
Hello Dali focused on older, less used games to get the group back into the swing of things, said Stauffer.
One game played on Thursday was pocket line, which Stauffer described as a classic. In this game, two group members acted out a scene while reading from pieces of paper with prompts written by audience members.
Other shows Hello Dali does are split shows, where only half of the members perform.
Stauffer said there are usually about 30 people in the audience, but the exact number that came to see the show was unknown because the shows are also livestreamed on Facebook.
In this game, members Michael Fellows “Asiago” (Front) and Myles Wright “Hunkules” (Back) use audience-written slips of paper to engage with their scene about their mortician job during Hello Dali’s first show of the semester on Thursday in the Doudna Fine Arts Center.
Another member of Hello Dali, Abby Hill, a senior graphic design major, said she loved seeing all the different faces that come to the shows.
“I’m proud of our crowd and the people that we attract, because it’s not just one kind of person that comes to see an improv show,” Hill said.
Another Hello Dali member was Ethan Lane, a grad student focusing on business administration, who said being in the group helped him find friends and purpose.
“We have a very strong and tight community here,” said Lane.
One of the audience members was Vance Hertter, a senior in elementary education, who said he liked the show and all the different things that the group did to get a laugh out of people.
“I’m a big fan of reverse games when they do a lot of expressive stuff,” said Hertter.
The reverse game is where two people act out a scene while another person will say two words, “reverse” and “forwards,” causing the other two to redo or speed up their actions.
Darren Weckle, a music education major, was another audience member that night. Weckle found the humor in the show to be funny, despite the games repeating from time to time.
“Well, they play a lot of the same games, but they have new concepts to start the games off with, and they always do them differently,” Weckle said.
Hello Dali auditions are coming up and will be held Feb. 4-6 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Doudna Fine Arts Center Rehearsal Lab, said Hill.
Rob Crownson can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].