Cricket City hosts auditions

Cricket City Improv, the Texas A&M University-Commerce improvisation troupe, held auditions Thursday, Feb. 4, for students interested in joining the group. The auditions were held in the Black Box Theater in the Performing Arts Center and began at 7 p.m.

With a crowd consisting mainly of Cricket City members, six hopefuls participated in various games commonly performed during Cricket City shows. The purpose of the games, as the historian of Cricket City Jacob Layton explained, was not necessarily to discover who was the most polished.

"Usually when people come in to auditions, we're not really worried about their improv level," Layton, said. "We're interested in how well they work with other people and how willing they are to try something."

While many were impressed with the auditions, the current size of Cricket City prohibits them from adding many more members.

"We're getting pretty large right now," Plummer said. "We're about 14 or 15 strong, and we're definitely going to bring on a few from tonight. Right now, I would love to add all of them, but it's really a matter of who we think works best for the troupe. We all have nights when we're not completely hilarious, so we're more concerned with who meshed really well, followed the guidelines and put themselves out there."

After the auditions, the Cricket City officers sat down and discussed the merit of each potential member. While the troupe is only looking at adding a handful of people, the auditions exceeded expectations.

"I was very impressed with everything that everyone brought," Layton said. "Ideally, we talked about bringing in 2-3 people, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that we'll bring in more."

The auditions are a tradition for Cricket City, now in it's 11th year.

"We usually do auditions at the beginning of each semester," Plummer said. "We've done it every semester and I don't see us changing that."

While the auditions are only held once a semester, those who want to join Cricket City have a few other options open to them.

"Sometimes we'll bring people on just on word of mouth," Plummer said. "We'll have them come auditions for us a couple of times and if we like them we'll bring them on. If you come to the shows and we notice you're offering the funniest suggestions every time, we're going to give you a second look to see what you can offer."