For those wondering what to do Friday night, watching a “Demon Spawn” rebel against her parents and a guy being hit repeatedly in the nether regions is on the menu at Northwestern Sketch Television’s premiere.
The culmination of a year’s worth of writing, filming and editing video sketches will be presented at 10 p.m. in Tech Auditorium on Friday for $5. The group’s theme is “NSTV Premiere: So Funny, It’s Scary!”
NSTV spends the year filming sketches that are shown on its website, nstvcomedy.com, but the premiere is the only time of the year when 33 never-before-seen sketches are presented as a feature-length DVD, said Kelly Kreft, head of promotions.
“What we do is a big effort that, to a great extent, goes unseen, so this is our big show,” the Weinberg sophomore said. “Everything we’ve been doing has been working up to this, so hopefully we’ll pack Tech.”
All of the sketches are written, directed and performed by students. This year’s theme is a little edgier, Kreft said. In fact, the flyers for the premiere boast a parental advisory.
“It’s black comedy to some degree,” she said. “Some of the stuff is a little nuts, and it’s not necessarily the most mature show in the world.”
While the sketches shown at the premiere will be posted on the group’s website afterward, Friday night is the only time students will be able to experience the comedy in a packed auditorium on a giant screen, said co-Director Dan Siegel.
“If you come on Friday, you’ll be one of just a few hundred people getting to see the sketches for the first time,” the Communication senior said. “Then, we’ll hopefully get them featured on Funny or Die or a similar internet distribution channel where tens of thousands of people can see them.”
The group has already been featured this year on the comedy website funnyordie.com. They also won an Illinois sketch comedy contest, with Siegel and fellow co-Director Pat Bishop winning VIP passes to The Second City’s 50th-anniversary show.
Communication freshman Aubry Cortez said she has spent the majority of her weekends at NU filming sketches with NSTV. Students should come out Friday night to see a side of the student body they may not know much about, she said.
“There’s this different aspect of Northwestern that a lot of people don’t expect and then when they do see it, it’s surprising and fun,” Cortez said. “We have so many different kinds of sketches put together by this really nice group of people with so many varied interests and skills.”
NSTV has changed in several ways this year, Siegel said. It shifted its focus to posting sketches on the Internet in order to maintain visibility throughout the year, as well as to get its work out to a larger audience. It has also worked to make the sketches look more professional, using students with skills in cinematography for filming and using higher-end editing software, he said.
“The content people will see Friday is probably better than any other year in NSTV’s history,” he said. “We’ve always been committed to getting better, and I’d say this year the sketches are looking as good as the (“Saturday Night Live”) digital shorts or other pro sketch comedy groups. … It’s going to be shocking and hilarious.”
