This coming Mom’s Weekend, Nuthouse Improv Comedy knows no boundaries as short jabs, raunchy humor, and visual demonstrations inspire a show designed specifically for students and their parents.

Nuthouse is the Palouse’s improvised comedy troupe that performs on select Saturdays at Daggy Hall. For Mom’s Weekend, Nuthouse offers two showings in Jones Theatre.

“The best way to describe it is the show ‘Who’s Line is it Anyway?’ It’s like the live version of that,” Nuthouse actor and senior English major Jon Rice said.

A typical show remains unscripted, with members playing games to exercise the technique of coming up with dialogue on the spot. Games like the rhyming game and ninja warm up the actors for an hour’s worth of unplanned acting.

“You go in and you can never be one person,” said Alan Vandegrift, a Nuthouse actor and senior majoring in mechanical engineering. “You’re a blank slate.”

A show is much like a rehearsal only with audience participation. Preparing for a show involves goals set and more games, particularly ones that they exercise over a couple weeks.

Cast members are chosen based on how actors work together during rehearsals. While the whole group has regular rehearsals on Thursdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m., the chosen members come to an additional closed Tuesday rehearsal to prepare for upcoming shows.

“Getting into the Tuesday rehearsal is a sign from the director and the rest of the cast that we believe you’re getting ready,” said Nuthouse performer Jonathan O’Guin, who received a bachelor’s degree in arts and theater two years ago.

According to Rice, the bigger house in Jones Theatre is good for the many moms who come to the shows.

“Having that many people in the audience and the mothers of the players there watching pushes us to give an extraordinary show,” he said.

Because everything is unplanned, there is not specific theme for the Mom’s Weekend shows. O’Guin said that moms, especially Cougar moms, can be a rowdy bunch, which sometimes makes for an awkward show when dealing with topics not suitable for children.

O’Guin described his own mother as very supportive.

He said his parents believed he could do great things and pushed O’Guin to do his best. Through their participation in community theater they understood its appeal, but he said he didn’t know how they felt about him doing it as a career choice.

A common joke in O’Guin’s family is his choice of doing theater after generations of the blue collared family. But they always ask about plays and are happy to have a more artistic member of the family.

Despite this, it is highly unlikely that O’Guin’s mother will be at the Mom’s Weekend performance because she lives in their hometown on the west side of the state.

“My parents support what I do, but it’s a six hour drive both ways,” O’Guin said.

O’Guin said his favorite part of Nuthouse is the applause, describing himself as addicted. Above all, he likes to hear the audience roaring with laughter.

“When you go up and do a show you are basically sitting up there and the audience expects to laugh,” Vandegrift said. “And you deliver.”  

Nuthouse’s next show is this Saturday at 8 p.m. The Mom’s Weekend shows will be April 11 at 11 p.m. and April 12 at 5 p.m.