Company is singing and sketching its way to community and connection.

Company is the nine-member sketch comedy group responsible for emceeing UCLA’s annual Spring Sing competition, which will be held May 16 in Royce Hall. Tara Bobbarjung, a second-year communication and political science student and co-director of Company, said the group opens and closes the show, while also performing a combination of live and filmed sketches in between acts. Sean Anderson, a third-year business economics major and Company’s co-director, added that Company’s sketches are tailored to poke fun at different elements of UCLA student life and culture.

“I get to work with the funniest people on campus, to bring a fun mood – in an SNL way – in between our acts, and really be able to showcase what it’s like to be a UCLA Bruin,” Anderson said.

Anderson said one exciting challenge he and Bobbarjung faced was rebuilding from a clean slate, because all of the Company members from last school year graduated. Anderson said this allowed him and Bobbarjung to be more experimental in their leadership and look for new ways to build community between team members, such as the alumni mentorship system.

Cameryn Mitchell, a fourth-year theater student and Company member, said mentorship from Company alumni was invaluable to the process of learning to write sketch comedy. She added that her mentor helped her remain grounded in the process of creating comedy. Bobbarjung said the alumni helped teach members, many of whom had never done sketch comedy before, about the processes of finding inspiration, writing sketches and developing the instinct for what makes a good UCLA-based sketch.

“They just understand where we’re coming from,” Mitchell said. “It’s such a singular experience to be like, ‘Yeah, I have to go to film at Royce Hall about the Hunger Games. I have to go wake up and shove my face in a B Plate yogurt.’”

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Gavin Liu, a fourth-year mathematics and philosophy student and Company member, said inspiration for sketches comes from everyday life. Liu added that he keeps potential pitches in his Notes app, with ideas coming out of everything from his involvement with campus organizations to funny stories he heard while talking with friends. Anderson added that he and Bobbarjung tried to prioritize creative freedom and give the writers the support and encouragement needed to take risks.

Mitchell said writing for Company helped her connect with the UCLA student community in a way she had never experienced before. She added that as a student in the School of Theater, Film and Television, her small cohort sometimes made her feel isolated from the larger population at UCLA. However, working on pitches motivated her to explore elements of student life she had never ventured into before, such as going to a basketball game or visiting the John Wooden Center.

“Being able to draw on common experiences that we’ve all had … I think that’s what really drives our sketches home,” Liu said. “Most of our sketches will reference some sort of insight or inside joke that all of our students have.”

Liu said collaboration between team members is essential to the writing and editing process. Anderson added that he and Bobbarjung would pair writers together each week to give them the opportunity to come up with at least two sketch ideas together. Anderson said they paired members with intention, such as choosing two writers with either incredibly similar or vastly different writing styles, to see how they meshed together in their final product. He said he noticed that some of the best sketches they produced came from writers who did not frequently collaborate.

[Related: Spring Sing 2025: Sketch comedy group Company creates community, camaraderie through humor]

Liu added that the strong community outside of work made it significantly easier to work together as a comedy troupe. During the first team dinner after the audition process, Mitchell said the team members stayed and talked for around eight to nine hours.

“Treating it much more as a friend group and a family helps us be more collaborative, be more empathetic, be more willing to work together outside of our regular meeting hours,” Liu said.

Anderson added that he has watched his team members’ confidence flourish over the past six months. He also said he has seen members without comedy or performance backgrounds grow into strong performers and writers with distinct creative voices. Liu added that his favorite memories from Company were the regular meetings where he was able to spend time and laugh with his fellow team members.

Bobbarjung said audience members at Spring Sing should prepare to see a diverse range of sketches that strike a strong balance between UCLA-related and general humor.

“We can just go in and just let loose and just do comedy, do sketch writing and just have so, so much fun,” Liu said. “That has been something I’m going to look back on very, very fondly.”