West and City’s improv clubs competed in a Comedy Sports style Battle for the Boot on Jan. 19. Both schools walked away with a tie, but the experience was worth it for West’s new improv captain Christina Carlson ‘19.

“The first thing that my first improv teacher told me is that the point of improv isn’t to make yourself look good, the point to improv is to make your team look better,” said Carlson. “It was so nice to have a team up there with me that I had so much confidence in. They learned new games only a few minutes before the show and I couldn’t be prouder of what we did today.”

Points are awarded to teams by the referee and celebrity judges, but mostly by audience engagement. Since audience suggestions were what drove the basis of every skit, the better a team could work with the prompt, the more successful they were.

“The audience participation was probably the most fun for me. You could perform anywhere, but if the audience is not into it, that’s not fun at all,” said City High player David Keffala-Gerard ’18. “But I felt [the audience] was really engaged so that made it fun for everyone else.”

Audience approval remained high until the end of the battle when both schools received a boot.

“The tie, I’m a little disappointed,” said Ethan Seylar ‘18. “I paid $5 and I just really wanted to see some schools get smashed. I really think that improv comedy shows no mercy. We just need to see who the real victor is. I’d like to take City High on to West High’s terf.”