On Tuesday June 6th, the Mamaroneck High School PACE program will host the Improv Olympics. This exciting event brings together students, alumni, and parents to compete in entertaining improv games for an exuberant audience. 

Previously, the Improv Olympics were held every other year, but this year it was “entirely organized by a group of students, led by Will Tucker,” stated Allison Parsley, PACE Department Chair, allowing the event to recur one year earlier than expected. 

“Last year was a huge success—tickets sold well, and it was an amazing night,” Tucker remarked about his decision to push for a yearly version of the event. 

This year, the event will be hosted by Glory Derhammer-Hill (‘23), Akari Funakoshi (‘24), Kaya Alper-Nocera (‘23) and Domenick Bierman (‘24) who are “developing new improv games that have never been played before” and “writing a totally new script”, said Parsley. The event will have a team from each grade level and additionally parent and alumni teams. The teams are all formed out of people who have not previously participated in the Improv Olympics. 

Parsley reminisced about the event in previous years where she “have never laughed harder or been more surprised [than] at some of the things that happen during the Improv Olympics”. Moreover, audience members will have the opportunity to contribute to the show, where interested audience members can enter a raffle to become a judge, and starting this year will be able to write prompts to be used in the games. 

Last year’s participant, and current host, Derhammer-Hill remembers how last year she “was playing an Improv game where you have to use an object in a scene, and had to use a plunger. The plunger broke mid-scene and hit someone in the audience!”

Funakoshi, another current host, thinks back to last year’s rule that “if you were to say something not school appropriate, you had to wear the brown paper bag of shame.” These are some of the numerous examples of the random and comedic events that make Improve Olympics the quirky, amusing time students have come to love, and look forward to. 

“Improv Olympics really reflects the community that PACE has built. For anyone who is considering joining PACE, or for anyone who is just curious about what we do at PACE, this is a great show to come to” said Tucker, encouraging everyone not to miss this iconic event.