Students and parents filed into Foothill’s Spirito Hall on Friday to watch the fifth annual “Festival of Fools”, an event put on primarily by students in Foothill’s speech class.

“Festival of Fools is a fundraiser for the speech team that devotes itself to stand-up comedy… I love having an entire quarter where the speech class does stand-up comedy pretty much all third quarter, and I get to laugh every Tuesday and Thursday during fifth period,” Kindred said.

This year, Kindred said the students performances were mostly improvised on stage, and that they are different every time they are performed.

“All of this is as improvisational as we could get. It’s never quite the same twice, and that’s part of the energy,” she said.

Hosts Alexia Khodanian and Josh Ward took the stage and started the show by telling jokes.

“What did the cell say when his sister stepped on his toe? Mitosis!” Khodanian joked.Ward also spent some time calling nearby supermarket Fresh&Easy “fascists” and “capitalist pigs” for raising their bread and microwavable bowl prices.

In general, Ward said that the experience of hosting was both nerve wracking and exciting.

“Alexia and I only found out we were hosting Wednesday afternoon […] But if you’re with someone who’s really good like Alexia, you can kind of go off each other and feed off positive energy,” Ward said.

The first on stage were Ana Bello, Emma Kolesnik, Veronica Mellring and Karina Schink in an original skit, “Sports at Foothill.” They played Foothill teachers deciding which sports Foothill should have. Schink played AP Government and Economics teacher Cherie Eulau, who was advocating for playing Quidditch at Foothill, while Mellring played PE Teacher Bill Huffman.

“I say we have the kids do squash! Squash is a really intense sport. You get a ball and a racket and you just go ‘Blam!’ and you just hit the wall, hit that sucker right through. Because these kids need to be tough. Do you know what the other kids say about us? They mock us. I’m already mocked for my height!” Mellring, as Huffman, joked.

Next, Natalie Smith, Michael Morales and Caleb Bigler took to the stage for another tongue-in-cheek performance about Foothill, called, “Spanish?” which poked fun at Foothill’s storytelling curriculum.

Foothill history teacher Dan FitzPatrick said that skit was one of his favorites of the night.

“That [skit] was probably my favorite. I thought that was cutting edge hilarious, and things that are cutting edge are hilarious in my book,” FitzPatrick said.

Host Josh Ward also agreed that the skits about Foothill were particularly relatable and funny.

“My personal favorites were all of the Foothill related sketches, so the Spanish sketch was perhaps my favorite,” he said.

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Seniors Caleb Bigler and Holly Guzman performed their duo-interpretation, “Mulan.” Duo is an official National Speech and Debate Association event, in which two performers must perform a skit without touching each other or making eye contact.

Bigler and Guzman have been performing their duo throughout the speech season. They won fourth place at the Fullerton Invitational Speech Torunament and made it to semi-finals at the Stanford Invitational Speech Tournament.

“At the beginning of the year it took more to learn all of our lines and get the blocking down and the characters down, and all that under ten minutes, but we’ve definitely been practicing a lot throughout all the tournaments we’ve been to since October,” Bigler said. “We’ve put a lot of work into it and we’re really proud of it. This is our last time performing it, so it’s kind of sad.”

One of the fan favorites of the night was an original piece called “Hipsters.” Allison Champagne and Katie Sones took the stage to argue over who had more hipster food, music and animal connections. Senior Michael Morales also burst on stage wrapped in tinfoil, saying “Did someone say, ‘fashion’?” joking that the tinfoil was an antique spacesuit.

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“The tin foil prevents your mainstream vibes from getting on me,” Morales said.

After an intermission of cookies and hot chocolate, Sones, Junior Aaron Hooks, and Champagne took the stage in an original skit called “iPads at Foothill.”

“You can draw on things with a stylus which is the same as your hand, which is just like fingerpainting instead of writing. It’s so much more effective and more technology! Cause we’re a technology school,” Sones joked.

Champagne also took the stage with her original piece, “Weenies.” The audience roared with laughter as she talked about her experience dropping hot dogs, or “weenies”, on unsuspecting pedestrians.Sophomore Abraham Orozco, junior Aaron Hooks, senior Dominique Callegari, senior Christian Alamillo, senior James Carling, junior Ben Limpich, junior Jason Barrajo, and senior Andrew Marostica also performed.

Junior Kiley Becker ended the show with an original piece called, “Florida.” She told the story of her grandmother sneaking hair rollers into her bag to try to distract the TSA so she could sneak alcohol onto the plane, as well as her experience with staying away from water holes.

In total, Festival of Fools raised $1,171 for the Speech and Debate team. Kindred said that with entry fees and hotel rooms the two biggest tournaments, Stanford and Fullerton, can cost up to $3,000.

“In it’s an incredibly expensive endeavor. The parents who are here know that, and so we thank you for helping to offset the cost of that,” Kindred said.

This year’s Festival of Fools has been one of the most successful to date. Kindred said it might have been the most amount of money ever raised, and there was a full house.

“The secret is not writing anything down!” Kindred said.

Festival of Fools 2014 from The Foothill Dragon Press on Vimeo.