Before the players take the stage, the audience have their heads down, but unlike usual, rather than playing with their smartphones they’re busily filling out papers with all the intensity of taking a test.

At the top of the papers is written, “What do you want to say to the person next to you?” The answers span a weird and wild range, from confessions of love to ventings of spleen. Even before the show has begun, the audience are already playing their part as creative contributors.

Later, two performers are on stage playing good friends. When the action reaches the crucial point, where the two have a falling out and start competing to remember the most moving thing the other ever said to them, then each performer pulls out one of the papers from earlier: “I can see your nose hair.” The audience erupts with laughter as the performers try and build on what was so moving about the line. Sometimes things go off track, other times the performer pulls out a convincing argument, but regardless, the audience continues laughing its collective head off.

Popular show Ding! Change! lets audience members indulge their mischievous sides and puts the performers’ reactions to the test.

NG Improv Club’s 2013 show Ding! Change! was their most interactive yet, to the point that the audience could even cause the story to change. First off, the performers all follow the script and go through a segment “normally” one time, then one of the key players—an ordinary desk bell—comes into play. The second time through, audience members can hit the bell at any time, and as soon as it rings, the performers have to come up with new lines. If anyone isn’t happy with the new lines, they can ring the bell again, repeating until everyone’s satisfied.

The scene “Midnight Meal” originally tells the tale of an old man who buys a fried-chicken-and-rice boxed meal every night for his son to enjoy when he gets home from whatever he’s doing out on the streets. After several twists and turns, ultimately father and son are reunited and we all get a happy ending. Once the audience has the reins, however, things quickly go off-piste:

“I’m buying it for my son.” Ding! An audience member hits the bell.

“For my grandson….” Ding!

“For Old Wang next door….” Ding!

“For myself!”

The changing of the lines also changes the characters, the father becoming an old man who just loves fried chicken and rice. At one point, a character is about to leave the stage, setting off with his usual line, “I have to get going.” After the bell has sounded a few times, he ends up saying, “Actually never mind, I’m not going anywhere tonight!” Where initially the father and son reunited at the end, this time through the two are “forced” together barely ten minutes in.

The audience, through the bell, has absolute power over the show, including over whether to placate or prank the players. Ding! Change! became a new best-selling show for NG Improv Club, with even tickets for added performances selling like hot cakes.

“When audience participation is higher, they pay more attention to the show, plus it makes them more prone to laugh,” says Oh Ya, NG’s leader.

Thirty-seven-year-old Oh Ya (real name Zeng Yanhao) studied economics at college and healthcare administration at graduate school, and now works as a corporate trainer. In the past, due to his parents’ expectations for his career, he put his passion for the stage on the back burner, only showing his true self in nighttime theater.

“I always wanted to be the happy prince of fairy tales, sharing myself with the world, but in reality I felt like I was living for someone else and couldn’t find the meaning in my own life,” says Oh Ya. At his lowest, Oh Ya even considered suicide, but then a friend invited him to an improv workshop, where he found he could fully let himself go, rediscovering the feeling of living in the moment.

In 2008, with the support of the boss of Live Comedy Club Tai­pei, Oh Ya and ­Zhang Yi­hui—a fellow participant at the workshop—formed NG Improv Club and formally began taking to the stage.

NG Improv Club’s first show was a surprise hit, selling out and filling the comedy club to capacity. With their later show Childlike Miracle, NG began heading in a new direction, eschewing pure comedy for a lighthearted, yet emotional look at how modern adults lose touch with their inner children. The show tells the story of an ordinary woman working a boring office job who gets a visit from Santa on Christmas Eve and embarks on a journey through time and space to rediscover her childlike side. Despite the usual sections involving randomly chosen ideas and props, when the protagonist returns to her childhood and asks her mother, “What do you want me to be? What do I have to do to make you happy? Are you happy yourself?” the audience is still moved to tears.

With members including a community college lecturer, community college students, and ordinary nine-to-fivers, NG Improv Club’s shows are always full of surprises and belly laughs. While they help their audiences escape the drudgery of daily life through laughter, they also hope to warm souls and tug heartstrings. Their shows, while ostensibly comedies, aim to help even those facing the toughest times find some emotional release.