Applause exploded from ComedyWorx as Sock Monkey Murder Farm took the stage Friday night. 

The comedic improv group consisting of a hodge-podge of different talents teased laughter from the audience as it depicted the life of a deceased character named “Laura” in its inventive style of improv called The Fauxbituary.

Sock Monkey Murder Farm uses its long form improv to celebrate the life of someone who has recently passed. With audience members offering details, improv performers celebrate the created character’s life accordingly.

“We get the suggestion of an age, gender and a random word — that’s how we make up this person,” said Alex Hofford, member of Sock Monkey Murder Farm and 2009 N.C. State graduate. “Our format has molded over time,w but where we’re at now is we’ll start with a wake. One person will be the ‘body,’ which is the person we’re talking about, and then the rest of the people are their friends or people who knew them.”

Currently consisting of six team members, Alex Hofford, Phil Kruh, Brian Dukes, Mike Ryan, April Dudash and Ty Devries, Sock Monkey Murder Farm was the brain child of former member Jessi Nemeth.

“It was about a year ago that we got started,” Hofford said. “Jessi Nemeth, she had the idea for the team. It’s a new form and completely made up when we started it. That was kind of the big selling point for the team — a format no one had ever done before.”

The team practices a form of improv called long form that is modeled after the “Harold version.”

“It’s in sets of three,” Hofford said. “Each set consists of different people with a little game in between those scenes. The next three scenes have all those same people except they’re ahead in time. It’s all about remembering where you started to know when to go ahead.”

“It’s just real life with different rules,” Devries, a senior in computer science and mathematics, said.

According to Hofford, reenacting a morbid topic can hit home sometimes, especially if one of the team members has experienced a loss.

“Mike and I have both experienced family members passing away while we’ve been doing this,” Hofford said. “We’ve taken parts of our own lives and put it into the shows. It makes it all feel a little more real when we’re up there.”

It’s the connection to their own lives that strengthens the bond within the team, Dudash said.

“We have this sense of fearlessness on stage that is always coveted by improv groups,” Dudash said. “Trusting each other and having that group mind means we can have the most outrageous scenes and the most emotional characters . . . . We’re all imagining and concocting that together.”

“We’re sort of this bastard child of improv,” Ryan said. “We don’t have a coach, which is a big no-no. It’s hard for a team to develop and move forward without a coach, but the thing is we care so much about this baby we’ve created that we’re dedicated to finding ways to pump up our game and really develop as a team.”

“Your team will call you out on your mistakes,” Hofford said.

“The thing is,” Kruh said, “your mistake can always turn into something brilliant.”

When it comes down to it, team cohesion is just one part of the puzzle, Hofford said.

 “There are times where everything clicks and goes together,” Hofford said. “Then there are times where we’re like, wait, how did that person die again?”

“The devil is in the details,” Kruh said. “You’ve got to remember so many little things. I have trouble remembering someone’s name in real life, never mind a name I learned a few seconds ago.”

According to Kruh and Hofford, the unique team name literally came off of the top of their heads.

“It was before our first practice,” Hofford said. “Phil had on a sock monkey beanie and someone said it probably killed eight sock monkeys to make it. I mumbled something about a sock monkey murder farm and we knew right then that’s what the name would be. If you learn anything about improv and long form team names, it’s usually this serendipitous light bulb that goes off.”

Hofford attributes much of Sock Monkey Murder Farm’s success to an aspect of improv he considers to be its main rule.

“Basically it’s the philosophy of saying yes to everything,” Hofford said. “You’ve just got to embrace the weird.”