In the fourth installment of its seventh season, Dropout’s Game Changer unveiled a captivating new game. Stand-up comedians Jeff Arcuri, Josh Johnson, and Gianmarco Soresi participated in competitive crowd work, generating comedy from the audience’s most eccentric — and at times, profoundly unsettling — anecdotes.
Entitled “Crowd Control,” the episode’s audience featured a competitive bearder, identical triplets, and a survivor of a serial killer assault, eliciting a variety of responses and jokes from the comedians. In the end, the episode examined the interplay between humor and empathy, making it one of the season’s most engaging episodes. Now, Dropout is launching “Crowd Control” as its own series, joining other Game Changer spin-offs like Make Some Noise, Dirty Laundry, and Play It By Ear.
Debuting this September, Crowd Control is presented by comedian and regular Dropout collaborator Jacquis Neal. Each episode showcases a new group of comedians who must generate new material based on their exchanges with audience participants. Similar to the Game Changer episode, Crowd Control’s audience members don shirts featuring fascinating facts about themselves. A red shirt signifies a fact that poses a greater challenge for comedy, but higher risks yield greater rewards, correct? (For instance, one red shirt in the trailer states “distant incest.”)
Original “Crowd Control” champion Soresi is back to defend his title this season. However, he is not the sole prominent figure involved. Crowd Control has gathered an impressive roster of comedians, including Bob The Drag Queen, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Paul F. Tompkins, Moshe Kasher, Leslie Liao, Ify Nwadiwe, Jamie Loftus, Leah Rudick, Cristela Alonzo, Guy Branum, Atsuko Okatsuka, Kiran Deol, Tina Friml, Baron Vaughn, Jenny Zigrino, Megan Gailey, and Joyelle Nicole Johnson.
Crowd Control debuts on Sept. 8 on Dropout, with new episodes available for streaming every other Monday.