Often referred to as the ultimate college town, Boston is impressively home to over 250,000 students. With such a young population, the city offers an accessible setting to meet students from other schools. And yet a trip into Boston can sometimes seem as daunting as climbing Mount Everest. Comfortable on the Hill, many students tend to stray no farther than Davis Square.
This past weekend, however, Jumbos had the pleasure of having a bit of Boston come right here to campus thanks to the comedy festival, "Laughs of Love," organized by Cheap Sox and Major: Undecided. Boasting the participation of comedy troupes from Boston University, Boston College, Emerson, Harvard and Brandeis, the event raised money for Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit organization devoted to teaching youth from conflict-ridden parts of the world the value of peaceful dialogue.
When asked about the advantages of involving other schools, senior Ned Berger, a member of Cheap Sox and one of the main organizers of the event, explained that it all comes down to providing some variety.
"I think that it's important to bring troupes from other schools because often throughout the year you're just seeing Tufts people at shows, the same faces," Berger said. "[An event like ‘Laughs of Love'] allows people to see different techniques and styles of comedy, as well as different faces."
He explained that it "really allows people to get a broader view of the comedy going around in the area rather than just at Tufts because we live in a bubble."
Senior Daniel Casey, president of Major: Undecided and another key figure in organizing the event, echoed Berger's sentiments.
"Apart from bringing in people from an outside community, you give the larger community the opportunity to hear or see communities they wouldn't have seen before," Casey said. "The sketch comedy scene is a bit fragmented and varies from campus to campus, and it's nice to see what they bring to the table."
Interestingly enough, it seems this desire and enthusiasm for intercollegiate collaboration is widespread throughout the comedy community.
"[The students from other schools were] for the most part, really jazzed to get on board and were really excited at the chance to come and perform since it's not often that you get the chance to go off campus," Casey said. "It's so easy to get stuck on campus or stuck doing what you're doing."
Building on this notion, Berger explained that members of participating troupes were happy to make it over to the Medford/Somerville area despite the distance.
"[They] were really excited and willing to come out to Tufts on their own, even if we weren't providing transportation or anything," Berger said.
Following the success of the festival, participating schools showed interest in returning next year and even invited Tufts groups to join them for their own comedy events. Although another on-campus event of such a grand scale is not in the works, both Major: Undecided and Cheap Sox will continue to join forces with other schools at other events.
Major: Undecided is in talks of collaborating on a project with schools such as Brown, Brandeis and Bard, while Cheap Sox is looking into working with BC and Brandeis. While not all of these plans are confirmed, the general motivation and willingness to work together is strong.
Berger, who participated in the Chicago Improv Festival alongside Cheap Sox earlier this year, discussed the importance of not limiting oneself to the Tufts community. He explained that these collaborations are helpful "because the troupes that are performing are so diverse that it gives us a new perspective."
Casey echoed this sentiment.
"It's a really great community of people and it's nice to bring outside groups of comedy, because as funny as we are, it's nice to have some variety," he said.
While the main advantage of intercollegiate events among the comedy community may lie in an appreciation of new and unknown styles of performance, other groups on campus value their interactions with universities for different reasons.
One such group is the Tufts Quidditch Team, which celebrated its first match this past weekend against Harvard. Although novel at Tufts, Quidditch is popular on other campuses around Boston including Emerson, BU and MIT. Yet Harvard was the team that Tufts Quidditch approached, since both squads are newly formed.
"It was cool because we're both on the exact same page; we started teams around the same time, about a week apart. They don't have more experience, so we're well matched for scrimmaging," junior Molly Newman, one of the team's beaters, said.
"Our goal at this point is to get experience because Quidditch is a very confusing game and no one has played it before. We're all brand new at it, and every time we play a new school we'll learn strategy from them. In the long run, we hope to get involved in the league and start playing official games," Newman said.
Evidently, in the case of Quidditch — as in most sports — the value of intercollegiate events goes beyond the benefits of collaboration and diversity; strategy and competition play a key role as well.
Despite the natural competitive streak of athletics, Newman seemed to agree with Berger and Casey that intercollegiate events provide an opportunity to not limit yourself and learn from others.
"The whole point of the game was to have fun and to get experience playing other teams, and we learned a whole lot from it," she said.
