Friday night was the second ISU AfterDark of 2016 and the event brought two acts to the Great Hall stage including hypnotist and mind reader Brain Imbus and SNL comedian Nasim Pedrad.

Imbus came out onto the stage just a little bit after 9 p.m. and greeted the audience.

“Welcome to the show, my name is Brian Imbus,” Imbus said to kick off the night.

He then went into explaining his act as “somebody who has the ability to read your innermost thoughts.”

Imbus called members of the audience up onto the stage for the first part of the show handing two of them books and asking each of them to pick a word from the book on page 53. Then he handed another guest a piece of paper and asked him to draw a picture and next to it a one-word description of what the picture was.

Imbus started to draw on another piece of paper but quickly crumpled it up and threw in into the audience.

He asked the girls with the books to think about the first and last letters of the words they had picked out. Imbus tried to guess the letters but guessed wrong at first.

“This is a bit awkward!” Imbus said as he got rid of the wrong letters.

It turns out the girls had actually picked the letters “H” and “N” so then Imbus asked them to focus on another letter that was in their words and to the audience’s and the volunteer’s amazement he correctly picked out the whole words of “Handkerchief” and “Mathematician.”

Imbus did a great job of making a fake mistake at first and then backing it up with a great payoff for the trick.

Then, he went on to try and find out what the other volunteer’s picture was. Imbus guessed it wrong at first as Imbus wrote down “House” as his guess but the actual answer was “Mansion” but, to the audiences’ surprise Imbus uncrumpled the piece of paper he threw on the ground earlier and on it read “Mansion.”

This would be the first of many times during the night Imbus would wow the audience as he started off with a strong opening act.

Before the show started, 150 pieces of paper were handed out to members of the audience as they walked in. Imbus asked those with the pieces of paper to write down their own name, someone else’s name who wasn’t in the room, someplace they would like to travel, something that happened to them when they were young and a number.

For the act, he covered his eyes with duct tape and blindfolded himself and it was clear Imbus had no way to see what was going on.

Then he brought up two audience members to assist him with the trick. He asked one of the volunteers to go out and collect all the pieces of paper and bring them back up onto stage and the other to go grab two random items from people in the audience.

As they came back onto stage the two items that came with them were a longboard and little plastic baby. Which Imbus correctly guessed what both items were without his vision.

To the audience’s amazement, Imbus then pulled the slips of paper out of the hat that were collected and asked the audience about things he thought were written on them.

If his guesses matched what someone had written down, that audience member would respond with “Hello” and then Imbus would say everything else they wrote down without even looking. 

“You are about to see my least favorite part of the show,” Imbus said after the act was done.

He then took off the blind fold and all of the duct tape off of his face.

“This is the fourth show in a row I’ve done this so there’s almost no skin left,” Imbus said.

Spanky the sock monkey was brought out for the next part of the show and Imbus explained that he was going to throw the monkey to a member of the audience and they would pass him along to another person.

As the monkey passed through each person Imbus would ask them a question about an imaginary trip that was being planned.

The responses were built into one final plan for a trip that would take them to Somalia on Frontier Airlines and the trip would cost $65,000 and the tickets would be in the name of Bailey.

When Spanky the monkey returned to stage, Imbus explained that when he has dreams at night sometimes he wakes up in the middle of them to write down what he’s thinking and he puts those thoughts into an envelope and keeps them in his wallet.

He brought a sealed envelope onto stage and opened it to find that the imaginary trip the audience planned was written down on the letter.

“On to the second part of the show, Hypnosis!” Imbus said.

Imbus called 24 students to the stage, all who hoped to be hypnotized. After everyone was set in their chairs the lights dimmed and Imbus brought out his special light and began entrancing the volunteers with a very calm voice.

The hypnosis worked on almost everyone on stage but there were some who had to exit the stage but Imbus would soon fill those spots with people in the crowd who became hypnotized.

Imbus began having fun with the volunteers by telling all of them to put their right arm into the air as straight as they could. Then he told them that on his command they would perform their world famous talent of being a DJ, in which they would perform in front of thousands of people. 

Each one of the people on stage moved in a really energetic matter as if they were playing in front of a few thousand people.

Then he asked those on stage to do their favorite activity but cautioned them to keep it appropriate.

The volunteers were seen moving all over the stage performing, dancing, singing opera and even playing basketball and baseball.

After that he convinced all of the guys that they were in the hospital and nine months pregnant with a 300-pound baby.

All the girls were set to be nurses that would comfort the guys and tell them how to take care of the baby.

Names for the babies were chosen by the guys, including “George,” “Batman” and “Steve.”

For his final act, Imbus assigned each of the hypnotized students a job that they would have to do when they heard a trigger word.

He closed the show by talking about hypnosis and as he was talking he would mention the trigger words and he would make the people on stage do something crazy.  

One audience member was directed to yell “I’m Batman” at the top of their lungs. Another guy acted really disturbed when he heard his word, because it made him think he lost his belly button.

The final act featured an audience member acting like a “fun police” officer (who would get after people for having fun), a guy who would always dance when he heard Tom Jones music but then deny he liked Jones when Imbus asked him why he was dancing, and girls accusing Imbus of pinching their butt when he said the word “Iowa.”

Imbus wrapped up the show and told everyone to stick around for Pedrad. He received a lot of love from the audience as he exited the stage and the volunteers came back out into the crowd.

After an intermission that lasted about 30 minutes the crowd started to file back into the Great Hall for Pedrad.

She was introduced by a video that featured her most notable characters that she portrayed on “Saturday Night Live.”

Right after the clips finished playing, Pedrad walked out onto stage with a warm greeting from the audience and she joked that her agent needed to shorten the video.

Pedrad was very happy to see all of the students that came out to see her as she thanked them right at the beginning of her time on stage.

She said that she had a friend named Mimi who attended Iowa State and Pedrad explained that she messaged her a question about the college before the show.

“Is there a fun fact you can give me about the school?” Pedrad said. “After three hours she (Mimi) responded with ‘Squirrels’.”

Then Pedrad talked about Fox TV’s “Scream Queens,” one of her newest projects, joking about how she was one of the oldest actresses on the show and also about some of the slack she got from her family because of it.

She also went into talking about her childhood and what it was like growing up with her family. Pedrad mentioned that both of her parents were foreign and that she was embarrassed by it growing up, though she has embraced it later on.

Pedrad said that she had a tough time fitting in but she used comedy as an outlet to make friends when she got into college. This is when she started to have dreams of being on Saturday Night Live.

Before SNL though, Pedrad talked about how she had to work as a character actress for children’s birthday parties and that one of the first characters she played was Dora the Explorer. While she was talking a goofy picture of her was shown on the big screen of her as the famous children’s cartoon adventurer.

Pedrad used the next part of the program to talk about her time on SNL and the characters she played on the show including Kim Kardashian, who she had met twice.

The first time she met “Kim K” was at a party put on by E! Entertainment where she actually did her impression of Kardahsian right in front of the celebrity.

The next time came at the anniversary event “SNL 40” where she had an awkward silence encounter with Kardashian and Kayne West, but luckily that silence was broken by West.

“Kanye finally started talking about himself,” Pedrad said.

Pedrad thoroughly explained her job on SNL, describing behind-the-scenes details including the week leading up to the show and what it looked like.

She said that each Wednesday the cast members on the show had a table reading of all of the possible sketches that might appear on Saturday Night.

This led into Pedrad calling members of the audience onto stage to perform their own personal table reading of a fake talk show.

Six students were chosen to participate in the skit as they would be impersonating Kate Mckinnon, Justin Bieber, Bill Hader, Kenan Thompson and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

“Here’s what I need from you–tons of energy; you have to make bold choices,” Pedrad said to the fake cast.

The students got into character very well, all bringing the skit to life, and each one of them played the sketch a lot like the personality they were portraying would in real life on SNL.

To conclude the show, Pedrad opened the floor for any questions that the audience had for her.

Q: “Are you single?” someone said loudly and quickly right away in the audience.

A: “Whoa! I am not, but if even if I were… I’m so much older.”

Q: “Is there a pre-audition for SNL?”

A: Pedrad explained that everyone has a pre-audition and that she actually did her’s in front of Tina Fey.

Q: “What was it like working with John Mulaney?”

A: “John is one of the most gifted writers I’ve ever met. He’s the reason I played Arianna Huffington.”

Q: “Do you still do things with SNL?”

A: Pedrad explained that the job at the show was a really tough one that takes a lot of energy out of a person over the years but she mentioned how thankful she was to be a member of the show.

Q: “What has been your favorite character to play?”

A: “My favorite was this girl in a classroom, her name was Shallon.”

Q: “What is it like working on New Girl?”

A: Pedrad said that working on the show was a great experience and that she loved being with the cast.

Q: “What is happening next in ‘New Girl’?”

A: “I don’t think I’m allowed to tell you but I stick around for a bit.”

Q: “Who’s the funniest person you’ve met?”

A: “Will Forte. He would make me laugh in way that was terrifying.”

Q: “What do you hope to accomplish?

A: Pedrad said that she is pretty much living her dream currently and that one of her goals of creating her own show is starting to become a reality.

Q: “What was the writing process like for the show like? How long did it take?”

A: Pedrad explained the steps behind making her show included hours of brainstorming until she became tired of trying to come up with ideas, but she seemed really happy with the finished product of her show and seemed sounded excited about the whole process.

Q: “Do you know Jon Rudnitsky?”

A: Pedrad said she actually helped Rudinitsky during his audition.

Q: “What’s your best joke?”

A: “Let me think about that one.”

Q: “What are your favorite and least favorite SNL hosts?”

A: Pedrad said one of her favorite hosts ever was Bruce Willis because of how much energy he brought to the stage. 

With that, Pedrad’s time on stage ended and she thanked the audience for a great show and as she exited the stage the crowd applauded for her.

AfterDark brought in couple of great acts to the Friday night event and although they were very different from each other, it brought an interesting variety to the stage. Both performers did a great job interacting with the audience and gave everyone a chance to participate in the show.