Juntos organizes improv comedy night

Juntos is hosting a stand-up comedy night on Thursday, January 21 of next year. As a part of a comedy night fundraiser, Juntos has invited Scott Levin, ‘07, and his Harvard comedy troupe, the Immediate Gratification Players (IGP), to perform in the Eagle Theatre.

Juntos was founded this year as a community service club with the goal of tutoring and assimilating ELD students.

According to Scott, IGP’s humor is geared towards a broad audience.

“It’s clean family fun for any age,” Scott said. “And you don’t have to be a pop culture guru to appreciate it.”

Two comedy troupes will be performing that night: The Santa Clara University improvisational comedy group, Inoperable Humor, will be the opening act for the comedy night, and IGP will follow up with the second act.

According to Scott, Inoperable Humor opts for shorter jokes whereas IGP performs longer, but both perform improvisational comedy, or improv. Improv comedy is thought up on the spot, and its spontaneity is from where it derives its humor.

“If you’ve ever seen the show ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?,’ it’s kind of like that,” club co-founder junior Libby Strichartz said.

Tickets will cost $5 beforehand and $7 at the door, and all proceeds from the night will go to charities—neither Juntos nor the comedy troupes will take a profit.

According to Scott, IGP’s policy is that it does all of its show for free.

“We just wanted to support the cause,” Scott said.

Juntos had been debating whether to split proceeds or donate all, but eventually decided to donate them. As a result, all the revenue from ticket sales will go to help a charity in San Jose called Sunday Friends.

“Everyone brought in a couple of charities,” Vice President junior Carolyn Yang said.

“We figured that it would help a lot more, that rather than trying collect a bunch of money and use this to establish an independent tutoring center, [donating] would be a more effective use of our money.”

Juntos started out as a tutoring club, but when ELD I and II moved to MVHS, Juntos found itself without a target population. As a result, the club has broadened the scope of its mission. According to Libby, Juntos hopes to branch out to help ELD programs at Egan and Blach Junior High Schools and Graham and Crittenden Middle Schools. Juntos has also looked into tutoring at Castro Elementary School.

“We decided that we really want tutoring, and maybe next year we’ll get something for sure going,” Libby said. “But at this point we’re going to try to make contributions that help integrate communities that aren’t really involved.”
Juntos hopes to attract a large audience. In order to do so, Juntos has sought to advertise the event in multiple ways.

For now Juntos members and performers are just looking forward to the show.

“I’m really excited,” Scott said. “It’d be great if a lot of high school students came.”
Scott is an LAHS alumnus, and during his time at the school he was active in the Improv Comedy Club, which operated from 2003 to 2007. The club met during lunch in the drama room to practice performing improv, and after graduation Scott continued with improv by joining IGP.

“IGP is a fraternity that laughs,” Scott said. “When people go to college they join sororities and fraternities—I joined IGP, and it’s like a family.”

Now in his third year at Harvard and IGP, Scott is the czar, the IGP title for president.

IGP members can be recognized by their attire. During performances, they wear red-and-yellow striped ties, reminiscent of the Harvard school colors. But a closer look reveals an “off, McDonalds red” instead of the Harvard crimson, Scott said, in order “to satirize the pretention of some of Harvard’s elite students groups.”

For students who miss the show on Thursday, January 21, IGP will be performing in the area throughout the month, with shows at Stanford, UCSC, San Francisco and Oakland.