The rise of SIT: one of ‘Berg’s comedy groups

SIT, Muhlenberg’s Stand-Up Comedy Group, is one of the newest performance ensembles here on campus, and the only stand-up comedy group. SIT was started in the fall of 2015 by Emma Rosenthal ‘18 and Ilana Saltzman ‘18. They both performed stand-up comedy in high school, but there was not an obvious place at Muhlenberg to continue, so they decided to start the group together. I was able to attend SIT’s show on Friday night and subsequently interview Rosenthal, who is one of the founders of the group.

One of the main questions I had about SIT was whether they censored themselves or if there wasn’t any line they would not cross. Rosenthal said that she does not usually censor herself or other group members because the point of stand-up comedy is to be able to share your story in a funny way. When I asked Rosenthal if there was a line that she personally would not cross, she said: “everybody has unique experiences and unique backgrounds and I think that comedy really extends from that…You take the reality and you find the funny.” Stand-up comedy can be an outlet for people, and censoring it would defeat the purpose of self-expression. I did notice during their show that there was not much mention of the recent election. Everyone on campus has been feeling the effects of the election, so I was surprised that it was not a focus of the show. Rosenthal noted that they tried not to use it in the show because people’s political views can be such a sensitive topic, and you never know who is in the audience; it is often a subject that people get the most offended by. Muhlenberg primarily leans to the left, but not everyone shares the same views, so mocking the president-elect might offend some students. Although SIT does not often censor what they are saying, this is one instance in which they chose to focus on something else to keep their audience focused on.

Earlier in the term, SIT got to open for SNL comedian Pete Davidson. This was a significant experience for everyone involved, as more than 500 people attended the event. Although SIT generally has a high turnout, it’s not usually quite that big. I asked Rosenthal if performing for that number was overwhelming, but she thought it was mostly exciting: “It was really incredible to have that many people exposed to our group, which is so new and a lot of people did not know about it before.” Something so big can really only help the group and get them more exposure. Rosenthal said it’s also great to have that many people laugh at your jokes and think you’re funny. And as she pointed out, the lights are so bright that it is hard to see the audience, so you do not get as nervous or overwhelmed when you can’t see who you’re performing for.

SIT currently has ten members who practice twice a week for three hours, just like all the other performance groups. They sometimes “workshop” (or practice) jokes by trying them out on students informally, and just bounce ideas off each other. Rosenthal says there is no limit for the amount of people that can be in the group, but that she thinks ten is a good number. They like to keep their shows around an hour, because if it gets much longer people tend to get impatient and want to move on to the next thing, so ten performers fits the audience’s attention span. Even though it is one of Muhlenberg’s newest performance groups, SIT has found success, and is very unique compared to all the other performance groups.

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