After a semester of writing, preparing and practicing sketches, the University of Maryland’s sketch comedy group, Sketchup, put on their end-of-the-semester show Friday night.
The performance, titled “Act Natural!,” featured a plethora of new faces with the classic Sketchup formula and no-holds-barred humor.
Sketchup’s talented and diverse cast performed sketches that involved a Russian prank game show, a horny stuffed unicorn with the ability to talk, a Big Bang Theory intervention and a vice presidential stripper among many others.
One particular sketch, broken into three parts with recurring characters, drew fantastic crowd reactions. In the sketch, a man and a woman—played by Nick Davis and Nelle Netterville—both claimed that they were not the parents of a child. When Maury found that the man was indeed the father, the woman proclaimed victory saying that she knew the kid wasn’t hers. Maury, confused, proceeded to ask the woman if she’d birthed the child, to which the woman replied she couldn’t remember. Finally, a birth certificate showed her to be the mother.
Later in the show the couple returned, this time on Judge Judy, arguing over child support payments and custody. The judge discovered that the parents couldn’t remember who had custody of the infant, but that the parents had lost the child and never filed a missing persons report.
In the final installment of the sketch, Ellen DeGeneres welcomes onto her show a young boy. After the boy claims he never knew his parents—and Ellen provides him with a $100,000 check—the man and woman spring up from their seats amongst the audience claiming paternity of the child. In the end, the reunion is a sad one for the couple, when they discover that the check is in the form of a college fund and they’ll have no access to the money.
“Act Natural!” followed the standard Sketchup formula of live performances intermixed with video sketches, creating a mixed media show that continuously engaged the audience. Laughter echoed throughout Hoff Theater for the full two hours of the show, 30 minutes longer than it intended to run.
True to its reputation of close-knit friendship, no one laughed harder than the Sketchup alumni sitting in the front row.
The end of the show brought with it many hugs, as the cast said a sad goodbye to its two graduating seniors—Tori Tanner and Netterville—for whom this was their last Sketchup show.
Although the pair will graduate come the end of this semester, they leave knowing that their group—bursting with new talent—is in good hands. And there is no doubt they will be invited back for the spring show to sit front and center with all of the other former students on whom Sketchup has made its mark.