Two WACO students head to IHSSA State competition

KEOTA — WACO High School will send a single two-person improv group to the Iowa High School Speech Association’s State competition at Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, Feb. 4.

Second year improv actor Jaklyn Cook and first time improve actor Tanner Egli competed in Keota over the weekend at IHSSA’s district speech competition and received a Division I rating to move forward with competition.

When the two performed at districts, they drew a scenario that included an opera singer meeting a group of lost individuals.

“We got two minutes to choose which of the three prompts we were going to choose,” Cook said. “So we both decided I was going to sing, so Tanner needed to come in lost.”

“He just took it completely existential,” she said. “He had no idea where he was.”

“I didn’t even know who I was,” Egli chimed in. “I was completely lost in every sense of the word.”

“I didn’t know why I was lost, where I was lost,” he said. “Just, I was lost.”

“That’s the great thing about improv,” Speech Coach Kori Rich said. “Jaklyn has to pick up on those clues. So, Tanner is lost and Jaklyn had to go ‘Oh, where are you lost? How are you lost?’ and that’s just what you need to do.”

“We ultimately discovered I had been kidnapped and out on a boat through [Jaklyn] asking me questions about where I was from,” Engli explained. “At one point I thought I was from Australia.”

“And he brought out the Australian accent,” Rich said. “It was hilarious.”

For Egli and Cook, a lot of improve strategy centers around saying whatever you think of first and relying on a few “when in doubt” ideas.

“When in doubt do this: like something is in Spanish, or one person doesn’t remember anything, or one person has multiple personalities or something like that to just keep the story moving,” Cook explained.

“We try to have as little filter when we’re going with it …” Egli added. “Just our first impulse to do something keeps the story moving. Even if it goes in a side direction a little bit, we can always get back on course later. It’s better to do that than to just kind of sit there in awkward science.”

When asked how they grow their skills to become Division I Improv actors, Cook responded, “We were born with it.”

“It comes down to the people in your group,” she added. “If you can feed off each other in regular conversation, all you have to do is throw a scenario into and then you can just go.”

According to Rich, the duo has a list of prompts that they randomly practice.

“Just kind of throwing scenarios at them, no matter how weird they are, is how you prepare,” Rich said.

In the spirit of spontaneity, Egli and Cook spend most of their travel time talking through various scenarios and keeping their brains active and ready to create.

Egli and Cook are also preparing to participate in the upcoming individual speech season. Both students plan to put their improve skills to the test with the current events focused event Spontaneous Speaking.

Cook will also perform in the storytelling event for individual speech.

When it comes to encouraging others to join speech, Egli says, “Just do it!”

“It’s fun,” Cook said. “It sounds like it is going to be horrible, but it’s not. The atmosphere is amazing. Just being with those people that are just as weird as you are, you know it is going to be fine when you watch those people.”

“ … you can’t really get what you get out of speech like the maturity and the comfortability with speaking in public unless you do speech …” Egli said. “Ultimately, speech is a good option if you want to be able to go somewhere with speaking publicly.”

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com