Abelina J. Nuñez
Arts Editor
With the help of the University of La Verne’s Involvement Fair this year, the Sketch Comedy Club made its debut as a new club on campus.
At the Involvement Fair, the club was able to get about 20 sign ups.
The purpose of the new comedy club is to allow students to come together to brainstorm, create and produce comedy content, whether it is live performances or digital media.
The executive board of the Sketch Comedy Club includes President Amnaa Taha, sophomore political science major; Vice President Andrew Morris, junior digital media major; Treasurer Cori Navarro, sophomore psychology and theater arts major; and Secretary Cassandra Tafolla, senior biology major.
“I personally created this club because I am a huge fan of comedy, specifically, sketch comedy, the video kind of comedy,” Taha said. “I used to do it back in high school where we had a weekly video show where we would showcase our skits that we’ve created as a classroom to our whole school. When I came here, I didn’t see that they had a club that’s video-making content, and I thought, ‘why not start one?’”
When creating this club, Taha said she pictured a group who shared the same love of different types of humor.
She wanted everyone to come together by using their creativity and sense of humor and make something funny and unique.
“The goal of this club is to provide our peers with a community and creative space where they can learn, develop and sharpen their skills in comedy,” Morris said. “Since there has never been a club like this before, we’re excited to test it and see what people want to do with it as we aim to be a member-driven community.”
Taha and Morris said they were in class one day discussing the idea of creating a club.
Taha came up with the idea of making the club about writing, directing and performing sketch comedy.
She felt it was right to give Morris the Vice President position because he was the one who helped her create and jumpstart the club.
“So from the beginning, (Taha) was very passionate about this idea, which was very engaging for me, and I wanted to join because of the opportunity to get more production experience,” Morris said.
Taha said she thought Navarro would be a good fit as one of her executive board members and offered the treasurer position because she believes Navarro could handle a leadership role.
“I joined this club because I do background acting, and I wanted to pursue a career in film,” Navarro said. “It would be a great opportunity for me to have a leadership position but also figure out how to get more experienced (in) acting for the camera.”
Navarro said she looks forward to meeting new people and finding the opportunity to branch out and see different acting styles.
As treasurer, her goal is to keep within budget on spending because of the plan to write various scripts in different settings and making sure they can afford the props or sets they need.
“I expected it to kind of be like (Saturday Night Live) but also improv, and improv is a key to acting comedy sketches specifically because you can always write comedy, but a lot of it comes from the actions or the unscripted bits,” Navarro said.
Taha said Tafolla was a good fit for their secretary since she was a leader in their sorority and used to do chapter minutes.
“My goal is to increase engagement on campus, especially post-pandemic,” Tafolla said. “I feel that many clubs just went downhill from there, so bringing up new clubs is a great way to expand student involvement on campus.”
Tafolla said she looks forward to the club growing and allowing students to have their own personal growth and confidence since joining something like this can help boost their confidence.
“Our future aspirations of the club is to have members write, direct and perform in live comedy, whether it’s stand-up or sketch, situational comedy, and be a part of producing and performing in video productions such as Lonely Island or SNL-style content,” Morris said. “The goal of ULV Sketch Comedy is to provide a space where students can learn, have fun and develop their interests and networking.”
The Sketch Comedy Club plans to meet Tuesdays at the Arts and Communications Building. For more information, visit their Instagram page, @ulv_sketchcomedy.
Abelina J. Nuñez can be reached at abelina.nunez@laverne.edu.
Abelina J. Nuñez, a junior journalism major, is arts editor for the Campus Times and a staff photographer for the Campus Times and La Verne Magazine. She has previous served as LV Life editor, social media editor and staff writer.
