BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – For more than a decade, Illinois Wesleyan students have been able to duck into the Underground – down the steps from the DugOut in the Memorial Center – for a weekly laugh with the student improvisational group Jm7*. When it started, the group was a sounding board, an outlet and a bonding experience for the early members. It also gave several of them the confidence to take on Hollywood after graduation.
Three of the first members of Jm7* shared their stories of what the group meant to them, and how the lessons of those early days helped them traverse the wilds of LA as a young actor.
The beginning
Jm7* started as a sketch group in 1997 with Scott Powers ’00, Mike Rich ’00 and Sam Kenny ’99. “Mike and Sam were roommates and brought me in,” said Powers, a theater and history double major. The trio performed all over campus before settling into the black-box theater, known as the Phoenix, just off of the Underground. Weekly performances included sketches written by the trio, who gave themselves the name Joker McGee and the 7 Lousy Good for Nothings, or Jm7*. The summer of 1998, Powers and Kenny attended the Improv Olympics in Chicago. When they returned to IWU in the fall, they incorporated improvisation into the performances. “As I began to write and direct more plays, the sketches took a back seat to improv, which takes less prep work. Eventually the sketches fell away altogether in favor of improv,” said Powers.