On Tuesday evening, January 23, the League of Striving Artists and the University Scholars Organization hosted a trivia night in the UC Ballroom.
The event was held to raise money for the Union City-based community theater, Masquerade Theater. Prizes were offered by various local businesses, including The Hearth and Styles On Broadway.
The 100-question game of trivia began promptly at 7:00 p.m. and was divided into 10 random categories with 10 questions each.
The game began with ‘Animated Villain’, where a movie was named and those quizzed were asked to provide the villain from each movie.
The second round proved a little more challenging, with ‘Acronyms, Initializations, and Organizations’. Any participants who were unaware that SCUBA stood for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus lost a point in this round.
‘Odd But True’ was the title for the tertiary category, which featured questions including “Some snails have over 25,000 of what body part?” (Hint: its teeth).
Next came ‘World Leaders’ a group that asked contestants to identify the homeland of subjects who ran the gambit from Ghengis Khan to Vladimir Lenin.
Round five offered a bit of brevity with “Funny Movie Taglines”, a homemade batch of funny film synopses. Two of the highlights included ‘Broody Teenage Girl Struggles to Decide Whether to Date a Dog or a Dead Guy for Several Years’ (Twilight), and ‘An employee of a garbage dump abandons job to be with a girl he just met’ (WALL·E).
The next group involved general trivia united by one theme, ‘Q’ being the first letter of each answer. Somehow, Qwangaroo is not the name of an Australian airline.
Round seven brought back movie trivia by asking participants to identify movie quotes.
Next, those in teams were asked to identify famous figures by their nicknames.
The last two categories used the wall-mounted screens to project images.
Round 9 thrilled the Fine Arts majors in the audience with the group ‘Famous Works of Art’. The final set of questions featured landmarks from Machu Picchu to the South Pole.
Ultimately, ‘80% Of the Time We Win Every Time’ came in third place, with ‘Very Stable Geniuses’ coming in second, and ‘Will’s Middle Name is Monty’ taking the gold. Each member of ‘Will’s Middle Name is Monty’ left the event with a ticket to The Masquerade Theater’s presentation of Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat and a $15 gift card for the Hearth.
Win or lose, trivia players had positive things to say about the event. Even though her team, ‘Bears…Beats…Battlestar Galactica” didn’t place, Chelsey Gordon, Service Coordinator for the League of Striving Artists, considered the night a success.
“Trivia night was a really great time. University Scholars meeting up with the League of Striving Artists was an absolute dream team,” Gordon gushed.
“Masquerade Theatre is a great thing and provides an opportunity to youth interested in theatre. Everything went so smoothly and was so well planned out. I hope for more events with both of them involved.”
Participants that pre-registered to the event were entered in the drawing for one of several door prizes, which included a Yeti mug, several LSA t-shirts, a scented candle and gift certificates for Styles on Broadway. All proceeds from tickets or snacks sold in the ballroom went to the Masquerade Theater.
