The improv team this year has two team captains, both seniors, ambitious to make this year’s improv team the best.

“[Improv] helps you with your communication skills and
teaches you things like listening to people,” senior and co-captain of the
improv team Amanda Federico explains. A very important skill within the real
world.

Federico’s early freshmen years did not go so smooth as she
would have liked, she “auditioned [for the team] and didn’t get in,” Federico
mentions. She than jokes how rigged and trash it was for her to not make the
team. But she continued to act, and eventually brought back the JV improv team
this year for those who don’t make it into Varsity at least have a chance to
improve.

“I was always the class clown in my classes but I didn’t
think I would do anything,” Federico said. Federico at first, quit gymnastics,
eventually falling into a depression for some time, but it was the push that
her mother gave her to try improv classes at improvMANIA that go her to
eventually stick to improv for several years.

“I ended up becoming captain my junior year and the first
to be captain as a junior,” Federico mentions. Thinking that due to her
background experience, her previous successors thought she would be able to
help teach more things to her teammates. To then making a permanent spot as
team captain in both her junior and senior years.

“After I graduate I plan on joining a bigger theatre…
perhaps go to Chicago and try some stuff there,” Federico says. In hopes as she
will continue to pursue theatre after the years of high school.

“She is basically my sibling and we know each other so
well,” senior and co-captain of the improv team Justin Griggory says. As both
captains have a bond that makes them work together cohesively.

“I have been in improv since fifth grade and it has helped
me a lot with public speaking ability… and not being super secluded mentally,”
Griggory said. Despite improv being hard, it is still enjoyable for Justin
himself as he talks about doing it.

“I hardly view myself as a captain, it’s simply another
team member,” Griggory stresses as improv is not more of leading but more of
working together to make sure everything being conveyed makes sense and works.

“I was very secluded and scared in fifth grade and I was
able to sort of bloom out of that from public speaking ability,” Griggory
comments. As improv helped him gain confidence and work to overcome shyness.

“I have been on the technical side but I have never been in
a real, in quote, theatre class,” Griggory indicates. Doing improv is something
extracurricular that he has enjoyed in school for a long time. His plan is to
going to the University of Arizona and hopes to continue what he enjoys inside
and outside of school.

The improv team has a need for balanced captains that
“balance each other out perfectly, Amanda is more assertive and Justin is more
laid back they still get the job done,” junior Lavender Hubbard mentions. As
she is grateful for both captains. It is all one team that will get the work
done and maybe showing opportunity to venture out more in that department.