Chapel Hill Players (CHiPs) has been nominated for the “Best In College Improv” award by Improvisation News New York, INNY — but they aren’t letting it get to their heads.
CHiPs, UNC-Chapel Hill’s largest comedy group, was established in 1995 by Zach Ward, founder of DSI Comedy theatre in Carrboro.
They are presenting their latest collection of on-the-spot comedy in a showcase Friday night at 8 p.m. in the Student Union Auditorium.
Chosen by INNY’s registered users, the nominees for “Best in College Improv” include UCSB’s Improvability, Yale’s Purple Crayon, Duke’s DUI, and NYU’s Dangerbox, among others.
“Our profile is fairly high by virtue of our alumni having represented us so well,” said director Danny Nowell. “So it has as to do as much about that as it does with our current work.”
After logging onto improvisationnews.com, fans will cast their vote for “Best in College Improv” as well as other categories.
Improvisation News is an online magazine and forum for improvisation groups across the country.
“It feels like people on campus don’t necessarily know about what we are doing,” Nowell said. “The nomination reflected something to us about what we were doing and helped us see it in a bigger picture.”
The CHiPs performance tonight will include short-form games, Chicago style long-form improvisation and seven sketches.
Short-form games consists of predetermined games in which the players interact with the audience. In long form, players are able to connect scenes to tell a story.
“We have a different set of sketches for this show that we have written within the last month or so that haven’t be seen before,” said CHiPs player Doug Harris.
To publicize voting, ChiPs have started a Facebook campaign and will mention voting during their show.
“We hope that people are pleased enough with their experiences to go out of their way,” said Nowell.
“We’ll be there, we’ll be doing our thing, and we’ll play hard regardless if there are 3 people or 300, but if we have 300 people it’s a lot more fun for us.”
To vote for CHiPs log onto the Improvisation News website here. .
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