Student life can be hectic, with most students taking on heavy course loads, internships, part-time jobs or other commitments. But one local theater group wants students to take a break, relax and "schedule some funny."
Theatre Strike Force, UF's premiere sketch and improv troupe, is having its Mainstage Show for the first time since 2008. The three-day event will run at 8 p.m. on Thursday through Saturday at the UF Constans Theatre.
The show is usually Theatre Strike Force's largest event, but conflicts have caused the troupe to hold a different spring show in the Rion Ballroom in recent years.
Now that the show is back on, Katie LeBlanc, president of Theatre Strike Force, said the group is more excited to perform than ever.
"It's always the show that draws the biggest crowd and the most work goes into it," LeBlanc said.
While UF students may know the group from its weekly on-campus performances, LeBlanc said there's much more to the group than meets the eye.
Theatre Strike Force uses a five-level academy structure to instruct its members in improvisational comedy. Also, it focuses on both short- and long-form improv and separates its members into performance teams.
The most elite of these performance teams is the Sunday Group, which represents the cream of Theatre Strike Force's crop.
"Usually the people in the Sunday Group have been here the longest," LeBlanc said, "and they are our most talented members."
In fact, last year the Sunday Group earned a spot in the National College Improv Tournament for the second year in a row.
The tournament began in November, and a performance in Atlanta led the Sunday Group to a berth in the national tournament in Chicago.
While the Feb. 26 competition is fast approaching, the group isn't overlooking its most heralded local event.
"The Gainesville and UF audience is still our most important audience," LeBlanc said. "They're the people that we perform for regularly, so we want to make sure that we provide them with a good show."
Rudy Mendoza, the Sunday Group director and creative director for Theatre Strike Force, said the group will test-run its long-form performance for Chicago in the second act at Mainstage.
"We're sort of using Mainstage as a springboard for Chicago," Mendoza said.
Adding to the trickiness of rehearsing for an improvisational show is the exact irony of actually practicing improvisation, Leblanc explained.
"That's the funny thing about doing improv," she said. "You sort of just have to get good at making stuff up."
While the Chicago competition is important for the group to receive attention on a national scale, LeBlanc said, the Mainstage show most accurately displays what the members of Theatre Strike Force love most.
"We're just happy that we get to keep doing what we love doing most," she said, "which is making people laugh and bringing a smile to people's faces."
