Landen Baldwin compared the role of Company to drinking a glass of water after each bite of ice cream.
“It’s almost a palate cleanser,” said Baldwin, a third-year linguistics student and first-time member of Company. “It’s like, ‘This was pleasant, I enjoyed that, and now let’s get back to the real sweet stuff.’”
Company is a group of 12 students who perform comedic sketches in the style of “Saturday Night Live” in between each of the talent acts of Spring Sing. The mix of live skits and premade videos are written, performed and filmed by the cast.
Another first-time Company member, Dolapo Sangokoya, a fourth-year political science student, said she was shown the video of a previous Spring Sing skit, “RAIN: H20…NO,” during a campus visit in high school. Ever since, Sangokoya has dreamed of performing in Company because of the humor and school pride.
“Company is performing for the audience rather than the judges,” Sangokoya said. “There’s literally nothing else out there talking about campus climate and things that relate to being a Bruin.”
This year, Ali Wolff, a fourth-year political science and history student, and Amir Ghowsi, a third-year business economics student, are the Student Alumni Association’s co-directors of Company.
“I’m like ‘Oh, I’m not funny enough to be one of them, (so) why not direct?’” Ghowsi said.
Wolff said the cast’s various majors and campus involvement allow them to write material that’s relatable to many students; only two of the 12 members are theater students and only three are returning members from last year’s Company, Ghowsi said.
After holding auditions and casting the group in January, Ghowsi and Wolff began meetings. Rehearsals became more frequent as the date of Spring Sing approached, they said, with the past five weekends devoted to filming videos. While their meeting locations range from Ackerman to Wolff’s apartment, the members agreed that Parking Structure 7 is their main creative space.
Marisa Statton, a fourth-year communication studies student and returning Company performer, said meetings are a group effort as everyone pitches ideas, reads scripts and suggests new twists.
Baldwin said he generates new material based on daily conversations and jokes with friends.
“It all starts as that little seed of an idea,” Baldwin said. “You think about it, you chew on it, and you stretch it out into this idea that can be put into a story.”
Every Company member contributed toward visualizing every skit, Wolff said, opposed to having one scriptwriter and 11 actors.
While the content of the sketches is secret, Statton said this year will include a lot of inanimate objects.
“What’s really going to be awesome is (that) I think we’ve covered every medium of performance,” Sangokoya said.
Wolff and Ghowsi said Company is comprised of videographers, editors, improvisers, actors, writers and even opera singers and violin players. Ghowsi said a lot of different talents are packed into each person, which Statton said is necessary because they incorporate these varying abilities into the sketches.
“(The skits) become their own culture,” Ghowsi said. “They live on and they add a piece to UCLA that goes beyond Spring Sing.”