 "Photo: Gary Fung | Daily Trojan")
USC's Second Nature Improv is hosting the 5th Annual Fracas! Improv Festival this weekend, featuring student improv groups from 18 colleges and panels with performers from shows such as "The Office" and "The Daily Show."
This year's events - which started Thursday and run through Saturday - will include four discussion panels and 14 workshops.
About 170 student improvisers from other universities will attend, including some from as far away as the University of Kent in London.
USC's four comedy troupes, MRS Degree, Commedus Interruptus, Vidushak and Second Nature, will also perform at this uniquely student-run festival.
Nate Weisband, a senior majoring in theatre, is part of the University of Arizona's Charles Darwin Experience Troupe. He said he is most looking forward to the workshops that will be held.
"Me and pretty much everyone else who are going are just huge nerds about this improv stuff, so to learn from people who have been doing this all their lives and are fortunate enough to make careers of it is really great," he said.
The Fracas! panels will include well-known performers from programs such as "MADtv," "The Office," "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "The Daily Show."
Professional connections helped Second Nature recruit these performers, as well as some cold-calling, said Dan Lippert, a junior majoring in theatre and a co-coordinator of the event.
This year, more than 30 professionals will attend, as opposed to the 11 that did last year.
"Most people are excited about passing the torch to the next generation of improvisers," said Second Nature director Jacob Reed, a senior majoring in cinema-television critical studies and fine arts. "They say they wish something like this was around when they were doing college improv."
Putting together a festival such as Fracas! is no easy task, Reed said.
"It's totally on par with a major comedy festival, except it's just two students running it, so in terms of the workload, it's preposterous," he said.
Dealing with USC's administration is also time-consuming, he said.
"[Jacob and I] have been planning the festival all year. For the last month, it's been a full-time job. We've been putting in eight hours a day at least," Lippert said.
Reed - who has been involved with the festival since it began in 2004 - said that the organizers and performers were motivated by a desire to give back to a niche community, adding that the festival has grown immensely since it began.
Until its third year, Fracas! was attended mostly by local groups and there were no workshops, he said. Last year, an extra night was added to the event.
"It was growing slowly but surely each year for the last three years, and last year it blew up," Reed said. "It's turned into this giant monster of fun."
Since last year, the festival has also been sponsored by the satirical weekly newspaper The Onion.
The Onion sponsors many events, but Fracas! is particularly well-suited for a partnership, said Liz Kelley, the newspaper's Los Angeles office and promotions manager.
"Our demographic is college-aged kids, so it's a really good fit, because it combines comedy and our demographic," she said. "We like the idea, and it also helps us to brand The Onion in L.A."
Although some of the activities at Fracas! are geared more toward improv performers, the shows are meant for general entertainment.
Audience members will also have the opportunity to join in every night from 11 p.m. to midnight during Open Improv Jam! sessions.
About 1,500 people attended Fracas! last year, and up to 2,000 are expected to come this year, Lippert said. He estimated that about 70 percent of attendees would be students, citing a heavy advertising campaign in local theaters.
"People who do improv will get a lot out of the panels because they have an understanding on a different level. For people who don't, it'll just be fascinating [to get a glimpse into the world of improvisation]," he said.
Lippert said some panels would be interesting to anyone, such as those about women in comedy, and the role of improvisation in the entertainment world.
Lippert said he hopes Fracas! inspires more people to take an interest in improv.
"I think one of the big things with improv is there can never be too many people involved," he said.
