As COVID-19 continues to infect people worldwide, schools continue to take preventative measures to prevent the spread of the virus. Precautions include masks, social distancing, one way hallways and more. One group that has gone to great lengths to maintain some kind of normalcy is the Greenhill improv troupe.

A big part of the improv groups comedy includes physical interaction, something that is obviously not possible right now.

“Adapting to doing Improv virtually has been a challenge that Greenhill’s troupe has been facing head on. Since the physicality and tonality of the scene is hard to recreate when you are not in person, we have had to find ways to change games to fit the online experience,” said troupe member Sami Khan.

Improv’s shift to fully online performances has certainly made it difficult to act out scenes, but Sami believes Improve teacher Henry Paolissi, or “Mr. P” as many students call him, is doing everything he can to continue performances through this year.

“What I’m trying to do is get some sort of show together that we can do on zoom… we may have to do a long form performance, with one long scene instead of multiple games. This way we could be able to incorporate everybody into it,” said Paolissi.

He hopes that the Improv Troupe perform during the Holiday Concert, but does not think he can have a show any earlier than that.

How the troupe practices had been changed as well. They have moved practices to Sunday at 5 pm, a big shift from their regular 7 am practice time they had before.

“I think Mr. P has done a fabulous job getting improv up and running given our circumstances. When the pandemic first began, it took a while to get things rolling once again. However, I know Mr. P has worked hard to make virtual improv a reality and it really shows in the scenes we are able to create online,” said Khan.