Improv group director and education senior, Bryce Maurer, who started doing improv his freshman year, welcomes people of all skill levels to come out and try it.

“My major is education so I love to teach people about improv. It’s one of the biggest things in my life, so I love to share that.” Maurer said. “People come, and they feel bad because they’re not good. Everyone’s got some skills, but obviously you’re not going to be good right away. So the biggest thing is to keep coming and keep taking the little critiques we give you, working on it and staying dedicated.”

Arts and humanities freshman Erin Paskus just joined the group this year and said the improv group is different than other student organizations on campus.

“Everyone who’s been in there for a while, they really know what they’re doing, and they’re really nice,” Paskus said. “I just feel like the environment is very supportive.”

Maurer considers improv to be beneficial in many ways, one being it’s a massive stress reliever after the daily grind of class.

“I just get to come here and play games twice a week, just laugh and have a blast,” Maurer said. “It teaches me to speak off the top of my head, and it gives me great public speaking skills.”

Improv isn’t just fun and games for the group director — Maurer believes the group to be much more than that.

“These people are my family,” Maurer said. “I’ve seen them twice a week for a long time. We hang out on the weekends, we get to know each other. We try as fast as possible to get all the new people integrated in our group, so they can share in our jokes.

“We have inside jokes, we have all this stuff we do together. It’s like a little, tiny community within MSU, which makes it a whole experience,” he said.

The improv group practices from 8-10:30 p.m. every Monday and Wednesday in Snyder-Phillips room C202.