By Shamit DSouza ’25
With Thanksgiving slowly rolling in, we find ourselves reflecting on what we’re thankful for, but one thing often overlooked is appreciating the gift of laughter. Sanguine Humors, a comedy improv group run by Mr. Marcel, never falls short of delivering an entertaining show while also bringing together communities in more ways than one. Sanguine Humors has been an integral part of Bellarmine’s Theatre Arts for more than three decades. To get a deeper perspective on the club, I interviewed Nate Lanier ’22, who is part of Sanguine Humors.
Q: How would you characterize the Sanguine Humors club?
“So, Sanguine has a couple of missions, the defining factors being to do service for the community. We always raise money in our shows, and the other big thing is to bring people together in a room and laugh together. I believe what goes on in the black box in the main stage is a pretty special thing. We haven’t had that in a while.”
Q: How did you get involved in Sanguine Humors?
“When I was a freshman, I went to a Sanguine show and I really loved it, and my sophomore year I saw the posters for auditions. I knew a couple people interested as well and we auditioned together, and I ended up making Sanguine and it’s been a wonderful experience.”
Q: Being improv, what directs the narrative of the show?
“We talk sort of business during our Friday afternoon practices. We have a brainstorming session; we decide what games we want to play. We go through members; we each choose what game we want to play. Any game we play during the show, we might do extra during practice, but every show it’s going to look a lot different.”
Q: About how many hours each week do you put into the club?
“We usually have practices on Fridays until 4 o’clock, so that’s a little over 2 hours for me. And then we spend time outside practices filming, whether it be an intro video for the show or we’re doing another video for Sanguine. I would say between 2-4 hours, and it’s not a huge time commitment.”
Q: What’s your favorite part of Sanguine Humors?
“My favorite part about Sanguine is being in a room with some of my best friends in the world and laughing together. Being a part of Sanguine is a kind of camaraderie or friendship that I don’t see anywhere else on campus. After practices, we go get lunch together, we go get food together, we celebrate together. Being part of an improv group is a difficult thing, you have to be vulnerable a lot of the time, you’re letting the audience see what’s going on inside your head moment to moment, but you go through that with these people.”
Hopefully many of your questions about Sanguine Humors were answered through this interview. Anyone interested in improv comedy should also check out “Nonsenicals,” which is an improv-group that doesn’t require auditions and meets every Tuesday after school.