Cayuga’s Harlequin Productions Featuring Sketch Comedy in Fall Performance

Cayuga Community College’s student theatre troupe will explore comedic sketches and skits in its fall production, starting this week at the College’s Auburn Campus.

Harlequin Productions’ fall showing of “Jest Desserts” features short comedic skits akin to late-night comedy television, but rolls them into a single show with students juggling roles across the production.

The play, written by Rich Orloff, premiers at Cayuga’s Bob Frame Black Box Theatre on the Auburn Campus on Thursday, Oct. 24. It’s scheduled for additional performances Oct. 25-26 and Oct. 31-Nov. 2 at the same venue. All performances begin at 7:30 p.m.

Frame, who is directing the production, said “Jest Desserts” has been an option for Harlequin Productions for some time, but this fall he had the right cast for the show.

“With a show like this one, we needed a large cast, and we have a lot of students this fall who auditioned well. So it seemed like the right time to give a play like this a try,” said Frame. “Comedy is always a different style of performance, but so far the cast has been doing a great job adapting to that challenge.”

Frame said the performance isn’t a single play, nor is it a series of one-acts, both of which Harlequin Productions has done in the past. Instead, he compared the approach this fall to what viewers might be familiar with from TV shows such as “Saturday Night Live” or “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.”

The speed with which the skits are performed — with cast members jumping between different sketches with often just a minute or two to spare — along with the volume of characters presented extra hurdles for the cast, said Frame.

“Part of the fun of this type of show is allowing the students the chance to explore characters, and who they are as performers,” said Frame. “They would get to do that in any drama or theatre performance, but in a comedic show like this they have to go about it in different ways, and it presents a good opportunity for them.”

The student cast members are Louis Araujo, Connor Barrigar, Cameron Bouchard, Amy Card, Hope Campbell, Thomas Higgins, Riley Kimball, Kronous Panek, Alex Reuter, Kylah Rossbach, and Jane Sullivan.

For more details about Harlequin Productions, visit https://www.cayuga-cc.edu/students/student-life/harlequin/.