By Hailey Frank, WSS Intern

No pressure. A way to destress. Encouraging. There are many words that describe improv club. As a captain to the club this year, Helen Zhang ‘22 wants others to know more about it.
Zhang is running improv club this year and excited for what’s to come. In the club, students practice acting, but without a script, just making it up as they go. Zhang first joined in her freshman year at the Club Fair. One of the captains approached her, knowing her previously from a community theatre show, and suggested the club. Zhang agreed and joined, thinking she would just try it out and not expecting to like it. Little did she know, it was a great decision.
“I remember at the first meeting, after it I was really relieved. I thought it was going to be just theatre kids judging me, but it wasn’t,” Zhang said.
Students everywhere need that safe and comforting place to make friends and talk. The improv club at West High provides exactly that. At a typical meeting, members spend about an hour playing games that work on their acting skills, like “Freeze”. In this game, students begin acting out a scene until someone says freeze, then replace one student and begin again. Zhang was not really into theatre to start with, but is super happy that she made the decision to try out the club. When asked, she stated that her favorite part of the club is how relaxing it is at the end of the day, as a nice destresser. Zhang also stated that it is super low-key.
“Everybody’s non-judgemental and even if you are not super confident, everybody’s very encouraging, and you never feel pressured to do anything,” Zhang said.

The previous captains were seniors in the class of 2019, and have moved on from West High, so Zhang, along with Samantha Falduto ‘22, are in charge of the club this year. As a captain, Zhang plans to improve the club by getting more members to join the four or five that regularly attend every Thursday after school and to keep it organized. She also hopes to continue the tradition of competing against City High’s improv club. The competition, known as the “Battle of the Boot”, takes place each January. Members play the improv games like they do in their meetings, only with students from the opposing team.
“There are judges there, but it’s not super competitive at all and is mostly about having fun,” Zhang said.

Intelligent, creative, and funny. These words describe Zhang, according to her friend, Zoey Guo ‘22. Guo and Zhang met in seventh grade at North West Junior High.
“My first impression of her [was that] she wouldn’t talk much, but she’s very welcoming to people,” said Guo, “She is really creative.”
Guo says Zhang is someone she can always go to if she has an issue and respects her problems. Guo really loves her advice.
Another friend of Zhang’s, Kailey Gee ‘22, describes her a little differently.
“This is so basic, but unique, because she does a lot of different things like improv,” she said.
Gee also uses words like persistent and bubbly, saying that Zhang is just such a great person and tries really hard in everything that she does. She says that Zhang is just such a great person to talk to and is very dedicated to being creative through improv.
“At the end of the school day, if you have a long day, you have a place where you can just kind of relax and, you know, destress,” Zhang said.