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The show began in 1989 with a group of several University Of Pittsburgh theater students gathering in rehearsal spaces to play Improvisational Theatre games. From there, the show found several homes, most notably the Pitt Theatre and the studio theatre in Pitt's Cathedral Of Learning , its current home. The show continues into 2005, its 17th year. It stands as the longest-running theatrical/comedic production in the city of Pittsburgh. THE SHOW While the content of the show varies from week to week, the show itself has developed a format that it regularly follows. The Rules The rules are fairly simple, but they change from time to time
Other rules that have fallen by the wayside, but which are sometimes revived by necessity, include: "No Stereotypes" and "Too Soon (after a tragedy of some sort)," both of which are more like guidelines for decent comedy than steadfast rules, which is most likely why they are oft-forgotten. The Games As of August 24, 2005, FNI maintains a catalog of more than 90 improv games. These range from relatively simple scenes in which attributes are intermittantly tweaked to guessing games to elaborate, longer forms. While the majority of these games are gleaned from such sources as books, the Internet, and other improv groups, the regular performers who work behind the scenes actively invent new games for the show. For a period of time, host Ben Mayer even instituted a rule that the second game of the night always be a new one, and the show generated upwards of 50-60 games during that time; admittedly, not all of them are keepers. As of 2005, a typical show contains six or seven games, including Freeze. Freeze Freeze is the one mainstay game of Friday Nite Improvs, starting every show at approximately midnight, and lasting until around 12:30 a.m. While Freeze exists elsewhere, FNI has its own version of the game, with its own rules. The host first appoints a nibber, an audience member charged with running the game. Two volunteers from the audience create a scene with suggestions for a relationship and a situation. When an audience member feels the scene is ending, he or she may call out the word "Freeze!", which causes the onstage action to immediately pause. The nibber then decides what happens next, speaking one of two phrases:
At some point toward 12:30, the nibber will call out, ''"The next is a three-person,"'' meaning that when the current scene ends, the new audience member will not tag a player out but will instead join the two performers onstage for a new scene. Finally, the nibber will inform the audience when the current scene will be the last, eventually bringing the game to an end with the phrase ''Scene!'' Showcase Showcase, following Freeze, is a variety performance slot, intended to add another texture to the night's show. These are more often than not musical performances, but have also included poetry recitations, sketch comedy, magic, juggling, dance, escape artistry, and contests. While showcase is intended to be a momentary interlude between improv games, improv groups have from time to time supplied guest performances as well. THE HISTORY OF FRIDAY NITE IMPROVS, A WORK IN PROGRESS The early years Jeffrey DeVincent, creator and first host of Friday Nite Improvs, came to the University of Pittsburgh's MFA program for Theatre Arts in 1989. DeVincent had spent some time in Chicago, where he saw performances by improv groups like The Second City in addition to working closely with Second City Artistic Director Michael Gellman at Northern Illinois University. He had also seen the first North-American broadcasts of the British improv comedy show " Whose Line Is It Anyway? ". DeVincent and eight fellow actors started an informal improv workshop for the undergraduate students, with Jeff directing. The group met every Friday night in various rehearsal spaces on campus — frequently Cathedral of Learning room B16/B18 — and called themselves the "Late Nite Club". This group included Chris Potocki, Dereck Walton, Barbie Williams, Shawn Williams, Fletcher Reed, Pattie Miles (1989), Walter Herschman, and Rachel Resinski. As more actors & their friends started to attend, people were often heard asking, "Are you going to improv on Friday?" or, "Friday night, improvs?" Quickly, the number of attendees at the workshop became too many for small rehearsal spaces. In addition to the increasing size of the group, the idea began to change. While Jeff's co-host, Pattie Miles sought a more structured workshop with the more experienced improvisational actors as teachers, Jeff wanted to create a show in which anyone could take the stage and perform. In September 1989, Friday Nite Improvs' first performances began. The workshop that had begun with eight people had grown to draw an audience nearing 250 people, pushing fire codes and Pitt regulations. Admission was one dollar, with the collected money going solely toward the purchase of food and beer for the weekly post-show parties hosted by Lee Piper at "Piper's Fun City." At first, theatre department students and local actors mostly comprised the audience. While Jeff encouraged everyone to attend, knowledge of FNI was largely confined to the Pittsburgh acting community, but soon it grew to become a city-wide phenomenon, admittedly cult-like in nature. In 1990 the Pittsburgh media started began to take notice, and many glowing reviews and preview articles followed, prompting the audience to swell tremendously. The original eight members, along with regular audience participants, enjoyed a certain celebrity status on Pitt's campus and in the Pittsburgh theatre community. Each week, DeVincent began the show by welcoming the audience with a "Welcome, welcome!" and went over the rules he had created to encourage performers: Failure is OK, No Booing, Always Welcome, Support is Encouraged, and Always Listen. He then announced that it was time to play Freeze, which Jeff believed was the foundation of all other improv games. Freeze sometimes took up the first 90 minutes or more. Occasionally the group played other games after, including the improvised cult soap operas "Corn Town" and "Shalico." The Hosts
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