The 8th Annual Chicago Improv Festival, starting April 22, promises to entertain with guest performers from Saturday Night Live, MADtv, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Anchorman. Welcoming 125 improv and sketch comedy ensembles, the festival also offers professionally-led workshops open to the public, aimed at unleashing the inner comedian in even the dullest Chicagoan.

Celebrating 50 years of improv as we know it today, this year’s festival pays homage to the Compass Players, Chicago’s original improv troupe and the foundation upon which the world-renowned Second City is built.

“The Compass Players came together at the University of Chicago and were doing some of the most liberal and socially aware performances of the time,” says Zach Ward, one of CIF’s associate producers. “They broke the boundaries of what was acceptable … to present in live performance.”

This year’s festival features a new program starting this weekend called the Implosion College Improv Showcase that features college improv groups from campuses around the country. Both Loyola University Chicago and the University of Chicago will be present, and all college performers get to participate in workshops and master classes as well as attend mainstage performances.

“If we’re celebrating the past 50 years because of the Compass Players, we also want to celebrate the future,” Ward says. “What the festival and Implosion is trying to do is enable these college students to take improv seriously as an art form.”

The festival runs through May 1 at theaters throughout Chicago, with mainstage performances at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport. For performance schedules visit www.cif.com. Tickets cost $5 to $30, depending on the performance. Tickets for all performances are available at the box office or at www.ticketmaster.com.

— Rachel Wolff