Madison Kirby's hands were full. Her son was hanging out with the wrong crowd, shooting heroin and heading down the same path as her lowlife ex-husband.
She was convinced she would find her son in a ditch, covered in urine. She raged at him and stormed off.
Exit stage right.
The 20-year-old telecommunication and marketing junior fled to the wings of the Squitieri Studio Theatre in the Phillips Center for the Performing Arts as the next set of performers replaced her.
The seventh annual Gainesville Improv Festival ended Saturday after four days of workshops, shows and an endless number of awkward situations.
The festival featured performances from improv groups across the country, including UF improv and sketch comedy group Theatre Strike Force.
Improv consists of improvised comedy routines with no planning, costumes or set changes. The same actors could play multiple roles in one show.
TSF includes three long-form improv teams that string together a series of scenes in 30 minutes. The short-form improv team plays games similar to "Whose Line is it Anyway?"
The 40 to 50 members of TSF perform at four Gator Nights a semester and do shows for groups such as sororities and Florida Blue Key.
Ryan Phillips is a member of TSF's short-form group and the long-form Delta Group. The 20-year-old computer software engineer sophomore said he likes the laid-back nature of the teams.
"There's no practice, there's no homework," he said. "If you're in a sport you have to train, but in improv it's as simple as showing up."
Teachers from Chicago's famed The Second City improv and Improv Olympic Theater groups taught workshops throughout the festival. They boast alumni such as Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrell.
Phillips said the teachers and improv teams from Chicago are in a different realm than TSF, but he thinks TSF does remarkably well for the time and resources it has.
"We're trying to recreate what professional groups do in years in one semester," Phillips said.
When Delta Group took the stage Thursday night, its seven members rushed to the wings.
A son and a mother walked out and began arguing about the son's new heroin habit and his drug-dealing friend Jimmy. The mother pointed out that her ex-husband's friend named Jimmy also sold drugs. That's when her son exploded.
"So what?" he exclaimed. "Can't I have friends with that name?"
"It's the same Jimmy," his mother retorted. "He's like 20 years older than you!"
Another player tapped the son on the shoulder, the actors switched and a new scene began. After a few unrelated scenes about awkward personalities, home-wrecking and gaydar, Jimmy surfaced as an actual character.
The boy's mother confronted him about his drug dealing. They got into a heated debate, but they were replaced with another scene in about a minute.
Phillips said keeping up with the fast pace of the show can be difficult.
"The hard part isn't coming up with a storyline in your head," he said. "The hard part is coming up with a storyline with your players. You don't know what they're thinking."
The drug-addict son scenario popped up periodically until the last scene.
The players entered a sewer system and found Jimmy again, this time with the "sewer king" and mother-of-the-year's terrified son. Jimmy leaned on the sewer king affectionately and asked the son where his mom was. When the boy tearfully replied that he didn't know, a booming voice replied and the boy's mother entered the scene.
"I'm right here," she yelled. "I don't want to have to ID another pee body."
She paused.
"I mean a body with pee on it, not the award."
Local comedy troupe the Delta Group performs at the Gainesville Improv Festival on Thursday night.
