Laughs, improv and teamwork is what the Comedy Sportz team is all about. However, this competition brings a raging competition between teachers and students.

For those who are not familiar as to what Comedy Sprotz is, it is a student run organization that competes against other high school teams in the Houston area. Each team is given topic suggestions by the audience to improv on. The winner of each competition is chosen by the audience and the referee, usually a professional committee member at the Comedy Sportz downtown Houston location.

For the Comedy Sportz team, practice for this competition continues as regular. Senior Ryan Welch, captain of the team, manages all of the weekly practices. During practice, the team discussed and strategized their plans for the competition. No jokes are written for  this competition, instead a “tool belt” of characters are used based on the audiences’ suggestions.

“Usually our team focuses on playing the formulas and structures of the improvisation games during practice,” said Welch. “Our mantra is, ‘You don’t have to try to be funny because the game is funny.”

The eight teachers that volunteered are art teachers Emily Smelser and Erin Mitchell, engineering teacher Chester Hahn, sophomore asst. principal Heather Campbell, counselor Colin Weatherford, senior asst. principal Jay Matthew, forensics teacher Stephanie Chronister and science IC Thunajjina Uddin.

“I think we haven’t done much practice compared to what the students are doing,” said Mitchell. “But our goal still remains the same, we want to win and have fun.”

The competition takes place Feb. 2 at 7 p.m. at the Black Box theatre.