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closeLaughter is medicine
Emerald Ridge comedy troupe Hypocritz dedicates its winter performances to family of slain Lakewood police officer
Neil Pierson/of The Herald
A day after four Lakewood police officers were gunned down in a Parkland coffee shop, a small group of students at Emerald Ridge High School were talking about what they could do to help one of the families.
The Nov. 29 shootings personally impacted the school because the daughter of one of the slain officers, Sgt. Mark Renninger, attends Emerald Ridge. She is keeping her name confidential for personal reasons.
The 10 Emerald Ridge students who comprise Hypocritz, a comedy performance group in the same vein as “The Kids in the Hall” or “Saturday Night Live,” immediately found a way to help out. In the wake of the shootings, dozens of groups around Western Washington began fundraising efforts for the officers’ families. And Hypocritz decided it would give half the proceeds from its two winter performances to the Lakewood Police Independent Guild, specifically requesting the money go to Renninger’s survivors.
The group’s annual winter shows are typically well attended, Morris said, but the group didn’t want to spend the money it made in the usual way.
“It has always traditionally been sort of a selfish thing where we would take the money and go out to dinner,” Morris explained. “When the Lakewood police incident happened it really touched all of us. So we pretty much decided the day after that we wanted to give the money to them.”
Hypocritz began planning its pre-holiday break shows about two months ago. The students produced a series of pre-recorded videos to accompany several live sketches and musical acts.
The show opens with a “therapy session” video in which the group mocks hard-core “Star Wars” fans. Darth Vader, Palpatine and Queen Amidala are some of the characters represented and Morris does his best Luke Skywalker imitation, crying about the irony that he never met his real father.
There are also several interactive improvisation pieces with the audience. One is titled, “Dude, You’ve Got To Hear This,” in which two actors have to perform a random scene, then bring in a new actor and describe it to them without using words.
The result: A scene in which a character writes on a chalkboard and trips over something while running from the room is described as the final scene from the movie “Paranormal Activity.”
The group seems to give as much enjoyment to the performers as it does to the audience. Junior Eric Beier also got involved when he arrived at Emerald Ridge last year, saying he simply wanted to find a worthwhile extracurricular activity.
“I wasn’t very social until now and I feel like I’ve gotten a lot more confidence, more speaking skills,” Beier said.
Hypocritz rehearsed five days a week for its winter shows and the students were often at the auditorium long after the school day ended.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into it,” Beier said. “We would stay in school until 10 o’clock (at night) two weeks before the shows.”
The students research and write their own skits and songs, Morris explained, and they have one video expert and a staff adviser to assist them. The jokes mostly derive from everyday occurrences around Emerald Ridge, he added.
“We try to make something for everyone,” Morris said. “A lot of our humor does spring from personal problems at school — just social standing and different things. We take it and turn it into a humorous situation.”
Morris said he researched high school comedy groups over the summer and believes Hypocritz is the only one of its kind in the state.
When they’re not dreaming up new bits, like playing Twister with a centaur or singing songs about color blindness, the group is thinking about its fellow students. That’s why it only felt natural to help out Renninger’s family.
“We just thought this was a tragedy that hit really hard around here,” Beier said. “We just felt we could help make a difference, help someone else have a better Christmas.”