It’s like a red carpet event,” Kathrina Manalac, a Communication junior. “We normally dress in formal wear; it’s a big hurrah.”
But don’t be deceived. Manalac isn’t talking about the Academy Awards or The Legends Ball. She’s hyping Northwestern Student Television’s (NSTV) spring show – an event she’s co-executive producing.
“Everyone in the group, all 41 members, will be there,” she adds.
NSTV is Northwestern’s premier television sketch comedy troupe. The group writes, directs, shoots, produces and promotes their own show, screened each year in May.
The spring NSTV show usually draws a large crowd from the NU undegraduate population.
“Every year between 600 and 700 people, almost 10 percent of the school, attend the premiere,” says co-executive producer Amanda Dunlap, a Communication senior. “For our members, the sheer number of people in attendance is very affirming.”
But NSTV is aiming to be more than just a highly attended campus event.
“We hope for the premiere to soon be a tradition among Dillo Day activities,” head writer and Communication junior Robert Boesel says.
For the theme of this year’s show, the crew let their writers have free creative reign.
“It is a bit of cohesion,” Boesel says. “The beginning and end is book-ended with an IKEA-themed sketch. But we really try to have our writers do what they want. Really, there is no theme to this show.”
What does link all the sketches together, however, could be the incorporation of familiar comedic styles with their own NSTV style.
“We incorporate and satiate different types of humo,” says Dunlap. “There’s something for the people who like Monty Python, Saturday Night Live and those who don’t enjoy either.”
The different styles combine to form short segments, aiming to please a diverse audience.
“It’s a cross-section. We’ll spend two minutes on something and then move on to something different,” Boesel says. “Not surprisingly, a lot of our content is character-driven.”
He pauses before adding, “We do try to stay away from dick and fart jokes, for the most part.”
There are many types of comedy, and NSTV doesn’t hesitate to experiment.
“A lot of humor nowadays is done to shock,” says director Sara Hong, a Communication senior. “Of course we aren’t afraid to go there, and we’ll be as offensive as we need to be – so long as it’s funny.”
The end result is a whole year’s worth of work finally coming together in one complete – and, ideally, hilarious – production.
“I counted that we originally had 18 hours of footage in all,” says assistant director Brad Cerf, a Communication sophomore. “It was shot over the course of 12 weekends.”
Now in its 11th season, the group, it seems, has come a long way since its beginning years, when it wasn’t a separate entity.
“NSTV started out as a hodge-podge of different television programs for Northwestern students,” says Boesel. “There was news, sports and other programming, including sketch comedy. Northwestern News Network then broke off and went on its own and that’s when NSTV came into its own.”
NSTV’s spring 2006 show will premiere at 8 p.m. tomorrow in Tech Auditorium. Tickets are $5 and available at the Norris box office and at the door.4
Medill freshman Taren Fujimoto is a PLAY writer. She can be reached [email protected].
