Meet A4 Effort President and Her Campus E-Board member Alexa Nicolaou! Alexa is in her junior year and is a History Major.
Q: So out of all the clubs at Rutgers why A4 Effort?
A: Well I had always wanted to do improv, but we didn’t have an improv club at my high school. I saw that Rutgers had an improv club and I went to the auditions, I had never done improv before, and, by the luck of the gods, I made it. This is my third year and now I’m the president.
Q: Can you tell me a joke?
A: Definitely not. I hate that question.
Q: I’ve heard you have a funny habit that helps you with your improv.
A: Well one of my favorite things to do is develop characters to use during improv. So I kinda study people and analyze their idiosyncrasies and quirks and develop that into a character. I have a few characters and I pull them out during improv.
Q: Who’s your artistic inspiration?
A: Tiny Fey and Lisa Frank.
Q: Who’s your favorite comedian?
A: I have a few I love. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, I love their shows. I think they portray strong female characters really well. I love Louis C. K. I love Amy Schumer. John Mulaney, his two specials on Netflix are hilarious. And my current favorite special on Netflix is called “Baby Cobra” by Ali Wong. She is crass, talks about every detail of her life, and is also seven and a half months pregnant while doing this Netflix special and it is beyond hilarious.
Q: Do you have any advice for those aspiring to get into comedy or improv?
A: Just try it, go for it, go for that audition, get up on stage. It’s terrifying and you may suck. I was so bad my first semester, but you know you get better, and you just need to be surrounded by people who have faith in you and who see your potential.
Q: Why did you join Her Campus?
A: Well I originally found out about Her Campus from my sister, who ran the chapter at Columbia for a year. Faith, who is our Campus Correspondent, told me about Her Campus, and I really wanted to get involved. So I did, and now I am the Marketing and Publicity Director.
Q: If you had any superpower what would it be?
A: I would want to be able to speak every language in the world. That would definitely fulfill my language requirement at Rutgers. Lol.