California High School Drama Club members performed an MP3 Experiment Friday morning at 7:45 that lasted ten minutes. The idea comes from an organization named Improv Everywhere (improveverywhere.com), founded by Charlie Todd. Ashlee Davis, Drama Club president, convinced the group to try it and prepared the experiment.
Improv Everywhere stunts can involve anything from pretending to be lost at a baseball game to welcoming strangers home at the airport. The MP3 experiment is meant to be silent so that the audience will be in even more confusion about what is happening. Participants receive instructions from a downloaded file played on their MP3 player or iPod or receive a CD. Synchronized, they all press play and the instructions begin starting with "Good Morning, welcome to the MP3 experiment."
"Our MP3 experiment is voiced by two high school students going under mysterious identities as Addie and Erika and they instruct participants to a series of things," explains Davis.
"Two of the activities that the participants had to do were react to flying monkeys attacking the school and teaming up with a partner to have a dramatic Rock Paper Scissors battle" added Davis.
"The MP3 experiment was exhilarating," said Drama Club member Sarah Couchman
Even though the students who participated were acting strangely, they all had one thing that they agreed on. "It was absolutely worth it acting crazy, but we really wish more people would have participated," said Couchman.
Davis hopes to do the MP3 experiment again next year now that Drama Club members have more experience with the equipment and the design of the experiement.