The Shenanigans club at Los Medanos College acts as a safe place for students interested in both school involvement and theatre. The club meets in the Little Theater every Wednesday 3:30 to 4:30 p.m.

Founded in 2001, Shenanigans was originally named the Theatre Club. In 2009, it was renamed Shenanigans by member Larry Nalls. Nalls acted as an imperative part of the club until his sudden death in a car accident later that year. Throughout his time in the club, Nalls was essential in the reception of the “Outstanding Student Club” award, spreading the word about Shenanigans and its purpose to the student body at LMC.

Shenanigans provides students the opportunity to refine their acting and improv skills, while also allowing them to be a part of something bigger.

“Our goal is to provide a free resource for students who are interested in theatre and maybe can’t afford classes or want somewhere to go outside of class too,” said Adrian Montemayor, Shenanigans club president.

According to Secretary Grace Pruett, the club has incorporated some team building exercises into meetings to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome.

“We do some team building exercises…” said Pruett, “We’re also organizing the haunted house and planning for a guest speaker to come in to the club. They’re from the theatre department and are going to present on how to make acting into a career.”

Not only does the club focus on improving the acting skills of its members, it also offers members and the public, resources such as career advice and guest speakers. Albeit, many students believe that Shenanigans is solely an improv club at first glance.

“I did know that there’s a theatre club on campus but I don’t know much about it. I would assume the club is either one of two things; a theatre appreciation or book club where you read plays instead of books, or an improv and acting training club,” said second-year student Mary Katreeb.

Although often misconstrued as an improv club, Shenanigans has a multitude of schoolwide projects to plan out and get in order for the entire student body to enjoy. The members of Shenanigans are currently in the process of planning out the haunted house, and collaborating with other departments throughout LMC to make it as successful as possible.

“There’s planning the ground plans, set design, costumes, marketing, collaborations with other departments, safety regulations, directing the actors, and don’t even get me started with time managing this with other commitments and responsibilities [for the haunted house],” said Montemayor.

Not only is Shenanigans in charge of the haunted house this year, they are also currently in the process of reviving Children’s Theatre as well. Children’s Theatre is a theatre program in which student actors and actresses perform short plays for the children in the Child Development Center on campus. While they have not yet met with the CDC administration, the members of Shenanigans are hoping to make progress on this project throughout the week.