ARTICLE: THE HISTORY OF OOPS

May 26, 2004

Looking back I can’t believe that it’s been almost two years since some girl I just met asked if I wanted to help her start an improv comedy club. In the last two years this group has become so much more than what I originally thought it could be.  Actually, I really had no idea what to expect from this group.

Summer 2002

OOPS, to me, just kind of happened out of nowhere. Going back to the summer of 2002, I had just graduated from high school, and was getting myself ready for college, at the University at Buffalo. I was one of those kids in high school that threw themselves into just about every extracurricular activity possible, and looking back at the last two years, that has sort of happened to a lesser extent here at UB. But OOPS was there from the beginning, or, truth be told, before the beginning.

I was at my Freshman Orientation for UB, in with hundreds and hundreds of other students new to the school. UB had a group of students serving as Orientation Aides to help keep order and mix and mingle with the incoming students. Enter Lisa Kaplan: the mother of OOPS. She was serving as an OA that summer, and little did I know she’d change my life at UB forever in one conversation.

The OA’s were going around the tables in the Student Union during the first afternoon, where all the incoming students were having lunch. One of the OA’s came up to our table and started making small talk, the usual “where are you from,” why’d you pick UB,” etc. etc. She then asked me what my major was going to be, and I told her my intention of going for Theatre. She was intrigued, and mentioned that she wanted to try and form an improvisational comedy group at the school. She got me hooked, and we exchanged e-mails. On that fateful afternoon, July 25, 2002 for those record keepers or History majors out there, the seeds for OOPS were planted.

Fall 2002

Getting OOPS off the ground was interesting. I had very little idea of what was involved to forming a group on campus, and I knew even less about improv. But I was ready to learn. A few weeks into the school year, we began campaigning for OOPS, which at the time was an acronym (Oboisterous Outgoing People of the Stage), and put up fliers anywhere and everywhere giving out our information. Lisa met some people, namely Joshua Wynter, Andy Mason, and Zachary Gose. I got a few people, telling most of my theatre classmates about the group, and after a week or two had one surprisingly large general meeting. I couldn’t believe how many people were interested in the group. We easily had about 30 people sign up within a month or two. I also got to meet the people who had joined the group via e-mail instead of word-of-mouth. The two I met were Ray Hui, a business major, and Mike Baumann, a part-time student who was finally finishing up school after several delays. Mike had been a part of ComedySportz for years, which is probably Buffalo’s most prominent improv group (to my knowledge, Buffalo only has three improv groups today, including OOPS). He became our resident “improv advisor”, if only part-time, and under Lisa’s leadership, we started having meetings about once or twice a week.

Our start was rocky to say the least. I later found out that Lisa was learning as she went along, finding improv games and exercises online and then trying them out at our meetings. So, Mike was the only one who had an extensive improv track record before OOPS, but we didn’t let that stop us. Our membership slowly dwindled down to about 15-20, but we did our best to keep people. Lisa came time after time with ideas, and several came time after time with enthusiasm, and a crazy, rough-around-the-edges rhythm started to get going, learning what games we could.

We started to realize problems with the group pretty soon afterwards. The biggest thing was organization. I believe Lisa’s original intention was to have OOPS become a club under UB’s Student Association government, in which we would have a budget. But we started realizing that as great of an entity SA was, it’s rules regarding to clubs would not work well for a performing group. We tried a constitution once, but it didn’t really seem to work. We were having a problem with consistency with our members. It really was hard to try and manage a group this large effectively, at least for us, with really no experience. It’s also not good for learning with such a large group, since we would play one game at a time, which meant that only two to four people would be able to do anything at a time, out of a group of an average of 15 people, people only got to do a game maybe once or twice per meeting. The first semester of the group’s existence was drawing to a close, and things were starting to look bleak.

Things picked up in late November, however, when Lisa actually booked us a show. She had friends involved in a club called SARPA, a club devoted to card and role-playing games. They had an event in the fall semester called UB Conlite, which was a small convention of game playing and collectible trading, and the club allowed OOPS to perform for an hour during the convention.

So we went, a group of about 15, to perform for a bunch of people who were there for the sole purpose of trading cards and collectibles and playing games. The show was, looking back, very crazy all around. Yet still, OOPS was on the map. The semester ended a few weeks later, and we called it quits, hopeful for improvement.

Spring 2003

The Spring 2003 semester is what I look back on as the Dark Ages of OOPS. With the new semester came new schedules and new commitments. We lost a good number of members, which at the time we looked on as terrible. In an attempt to keep members in the group, we had three meetings scheduled per week. And while we would have these meetings, nothing really changed as far as what was done. We went over games, and that was about it. We never really pushed ourselves to improve, and we really didn’t have any more shows booked.

Another huge blow was Lisa becoming bombarded with other duties, both in her schoolwork and at her job. Her days became busier, and that left the group at a standstill. Oftentimes I remember her not being able to attend meetings, and me, not being prepared for anything, yet kind of put in the “vice president” role as it were, would have to run the meetings, and they often floundered. After high school I was reluctant to take on a role as “the” leader of a group or club. I had a fear of being a control freak, and I take a lot of the blame for letting the group flounder as it did.

Towards the middle of the semester, we had a small “mutiny” of sorts that turned us around. Josh, Ray, and Andy approached me (and as they told me, Lisa as well) with a list of complaints about the group. I was so fixated on trying to keep people in the group that we never got anywhere, and they were voicing their opinions on the matter. As bad as the term “mutiny” may sound, it was actually a much-needed boost for the group. Honestly, had those three not spoken up and simply quit, OOPS would probably be a bitter memory in the minds of all of us. Yet they stuck it out, and the group is still active. I can’t thank them enough for that. After that, we had a rejuvenation of sorts. The group became a bit more communal. It wasn’t so much relying on Lisa or myself, but giving everyone who actively participated a voice in the group.

Around this time we also picked up a new member, a classmate of Lisa’s by the name of Nick Devries. Nick brought a lot of enthusiasm to the group, and started to make a name for himself at meetings. Soon after we got another member, a friend of Josh’s by the name of Scott Kincaid. Our membership was nowhere near what it was originally, but things were definitely looking up.

March came and SARPA had their big event, the UBCON. Lisa, with her connections, got us another hour slot at the event. We arrived, this time all in uniform of OOPS baseball shirts we had made, and our numbers were nearly halved. There we were – Lisa, Josh, Ray, Andy, Nick, Zach, Mike, and I in the lobby of the Student Union – our platform was actually over the spot in which Lisa and I originally met. We performed to a decently large crowd which actually had a focus on us, although we were sort of pushed away from the rest of the SARPA event; looking back that was probably better for us.

That show was the last big contribution Lisa gave to the group. Soon afterwards, she became so overrun with work, that she went on a hiatus, and never returned. Not only had we lost our leader and founder, but the only person who had gotten us shows.

Enter one strapping young lad by the name of Francisco Baiocchi. I had met Francisco early in my college career, and at the time he served on the Hall Council of the Governors Complex dormitory. He had done improv in high school and was very enthusiastic about the group, yet he never joined. Instead, he gave us a gift in the Spring that was better than anything else imaginable to a fledgling improv group—connections to more performances.

We had two performances in April. One was a part of a dance-a-thon for Gilda’s Club of Western New York. We had five people, including Mike, who hosted the show. So it played out like “Whose Line is it, Anyway?” without the points system. So basically it played out like “Whose Line is it, Anyway?” perfectly. Another show was done in the Governors Complex Resident Hall, in which we did not have Mike, and for the first time, we members were truly on our own. In spite of that, it was regarded by the group as the best show we had done up to that point, and was the staple we used to compare our future shows for over a semester.

We ended the Spring semester with a mix of good and bad. Our membership was down severely from what it originally was, probably at about nine, with maybe one or two people who came occasionally. One of those people was a kid named Joe Martin, who I kind of owe an apology to. We met him at a show, and he wanted to join the group. I welcomed him, but circumstance pushed him away. Very few people came to the meetings by the end of the semester. Josh and Scott each had rehearsals for a play, Zach and Mike were graduating, and Lisa and Nick were busy with finals. Ray had a lot with duties as a Resident Advisor and his own finals. So it basically came down to meetings of three people: myself, Andy, and Joe. Nobody else really got the chance to meet him. When we started up again in the fall, Joe was overlooked. So Joe, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry, man.

Summer 2003

We had lost Zach. We lost Mike. We pretty much lost Lisa. But we were hopeful for the future, especially after having such a successful show to end the Spring semester. While we pretty much went on a hiatus, there was talking. Ray was an Orientation Aide, and Nick and I were at the club fairs at the Summer Orientations for other groups, so we got to talking. Nick really started to get an active leadership role in the group at this point. We knew that no matter what we had go wrong in the first year of OOPS, we could still persevere.

Fall 2003

We started meeting again, talking about the group. Nick pretty much assumed the leadership position of the group, which I very much preferred. Without him the group would not have survived the transition from year to year. We sat down and met, discussed the direction OOPS was taking and the direction it could take. We realized that we did not need a large membership, a budget from the Student Association or an executive board with a treasurer and secretary. We had a core of six guys – Nick, Josh, Scott, Ray, Andy, and me. We had a vision of getting OOPS out of its rut and make it bigger than ever. We had enthusiasm again. And thus began our Renaissance.

What followed was a month of taking comedy seriously. We held meetings wherever and whenever we could, at least three or four times a week. Eventually the term “meeting” was replaced with “practice.” Which is what we did. We practiced out the games that we were not very proficient at, and tried to get better at them. We practiced new games we had heard about. We even took games that we were fairly good at and strived to improve upon them even more. We also sat down in a circle and started to roast one another. We discovered everyone’s individual strengths and weaknesses. We grew a lot closer as performers, and even more importantly, as good friends. It’s kind of like replacing improv for football in “Remember the Titans.”

Idiosyncrasies started to creep into our act, as well. I remember the first night Josh threw out his hand and went “Whooaaa!,” joking that someone was slow on the uptake. Now, that gesture is used as the signature closing of our show, right at the end of the Drunk Man’s Hymn (aka the Irish Drinking Song).

Nick had connections to the Lutheran Campus Ministries, in which we were able to perform short shows during their monthly coffee house events. We were back to performing, and we were ready to get more shows under our belts. We had shows with the Lutheran ministry, a show in a new coffee house on campus, and even a show at 1:00 in the morning, for a benefit for the homeless.

Francisco went full-force in using his connections with the dormitory hall councils to get us shows. The kid’s gotta be the most eccentric, kind-hearted guy I know. Without Francisco OOPS would not be nearly as big as it is. Not that we’re huge, but Francisco has been a VERY big part in getting our name out on campus. We went from having three shows a semester to six. There was a period of us having a show every week, even two in one night. We had turned around almost a full 180 from where we were a year ago.

The fall semester ended for us on a relatively high note. Ray got us a gig to perform as the opening for a comedian that was coming to visit the campus, Joel Chasnoff. We took a great amount of pride in the fact that while observing the crowd, there were more people in the audience who had come to see us than there were to see Joel. We were on a high.

We actually invited Joel out to dinner with us afterwards, which I remember both made and broke Nick’s night. On the way there he talked comedy with Joel. For those who don’t know Nick is OOPS’s top stand-up prodigy. So being able to talk comedy with someone who’s been touring and doing stand-up for some time made Nick as excited as a schoolboy… yeah, a schoolboy doing something for the first time. The analogy sucks, but Nick was ecstatic to say the least. Joel only ordered a pop (or “soda” for the non-Buffalonians out there), and had to leave before all of us who ordered actual entrees, so he threw down a few dollars and casually left. Not five minutes afterwards Nick was upset that we did not offer to pay for the drink, it wasn’t even three bucks after all. It’s something we still kick ourselves in the asses for. So Joel, the next time you’re in Buffalo, the drink’s on us!

Spring 2004

Instead of picking up with our momentum, we hit a slight snag in the Spring semester. Josh, Scott, and I were all cast in the UB Theatre and Dance Department’s production of “Paderewski’s Children.” As a result, not a lot of show planning happened until the end of February. We had simply put dropped the ball, and I take the majority of the blame for that one. I have from the start been pegged as the logistics bitch of the group. I don’t mean that in the sense of not liking the work, I mean it in a sense of just doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff like making sure we get shows, making sure peoples' schedules coordinate, taking care of the OOPS website and our budget, making fliers, and so on.

We took the time to do a little future planning. We knew that Andy was graduating at the end of that semester, and our numbers would be down to five. We took on an intern at the time, a friend of the group named Walter Cook, fondly referred to as Chip. Chip had served as our videographer the previous semester, taping a bunch of our shows so we could put together a video to help promote the group. We took him on and started to train him in the games, and tried to get him as quickly up to speed as possible.

Our first show was a bit of a bust. My roommate was the founder of the a cappella group the Mixed Nuts of Buffalo, and he had offered me a chance to have OOPS perform in the lobby of the concert hall prior to their show. It was our first show of the semester and it was already March. So we went, and performed a short show in the lobby. We really weren’t that good, and the audience was obviously not there to see us. We had one game left, and the doors opened for the audience to enter the concert hall, and we lost the entire audience.

We got our act together real quick. After that incident we knew we had to whip ourselves back into shape, just in time, it turned out. One of my friends had seen a few of our performances, and asked us to perform professionally at a coffee house event that they were putting together. Key term being “professionally.” As in “for money.” After spending the next few weeks trying our hardest, we got back into shape to deliver what in my opinion was one of our best performances to date.

Not long after, things with Chip started to turn sour. There was some incident at a show that I was not at, and things went downhill from there. I’ve been clued in enough to know there was a decent amount of tension between Chip and the rest of the group. Apparently Chip’s views of us were not very high and his idea of the group’s direction differed from the others, or something along those lines. I never really got to talk to Chip about it, and I prefer not to judge him, in spite of some of the things I’ve heard. The group was prepared to have a talk with him and if necessary kick him out of the group, however before we could do so, Chip decided on his own to quit the group.

In spite of that loss, we were determined to keep going as strong as ever. One thing that brought us all together was the invention of OOPS’s first original game. Nick is a big fan of the improv game Reverse Scene in which the scene is made up backwards, line by line. Nick and Josh expanded on that, and threw everybody into the mix, and ended up creating a very interesting game that was reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s “Memento.” We decided to name the game after Francisco, the kid who’s been out strongest supporter.

We also wanted to go out with a bang and end this semester as best as we could. Last year we never really had a way to send off Zach or Mike, or even Lisa. We knew that we had to do something for Andy. He had been there from the very first OOPS meeting, and stuck it out through thick and thin. He was graduating and off to grad school in Pittsburgh, and deserved a proper send-off.

Francisco and I scheduled a show. We rescheduled a show. We rescheduled a show two more times before finally landing on a show in a lecture hall in the Ellicott Complex. With that, we went out and did one last show for Andy, and also paid our tribute to Francisco, giving him an OOPS shirt we had decorated with magic markers, to which he accepted in a stunning outfit consisting of blue spandex pants and a powder blue 70’s tuxedo jacket.

After the show, we all went out in celebration. It was the OOPS extended family—the six of us, Francisco, Mike A., one of OOPS’s original thirty and the creative muscle behind “The Ray Show,” Scott’s girlfriend Kim, and Josh’s roommates, Josh E. and Tim. We had a peanut-butter pie delivered in honor of Andy’s last performance, and by popular demand Andy actually threw his face into the whipped-cream-covered confection.

Looking back, I realize just how big a part of my life OOPS has become. Some people get really active in clubs, some join bands, some have fraternities or sororities. Me, I have an improv comedy troupe. OOPS is my fraternity. This is something that’ll be with me for the rest of my life, and I couldn’t be happier. In closing, I just want to thank everyone who’s had a hand in OOPS over its two-year history. And to everyone who actually read this monster of an article to the end, thank you for reading.