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Sketch comedy fest welcomes groups from near and far

When the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival launched in 2002, only half of the 33 groups that performed had ever done more than one show.

“When we first started sketch wasn't a true booming art form,” founder Brian Posen said. “Sketch was just starting to come on the scene. There were maybe a dozen established sketch groups.”

Things have changed. This year's festival, which runs from Jan. 8 to 18 at Chicago's Stage 773, will feature 167 groups, chosen from nearly 300 applicants from around the country with acts ranging from musicals to solo shows to political satire.

“You can see the absurd to mainstream,” Posen said. “Every hour on the hour you have four shows to pick from.”

Among them is a Jan. 15 show by The Ladies of the Ladies Club. The group of five men and seven women includes Elgin native Sherry Kneitz, who graduated from the Second City Musical Conservatory Program this year.

“I did musical theater in middle school and high school,” she said. “I was always very dramatic. I was raised watching Lucille Ball and soap operas. I went to see a Second City Mainstage show many, many years ago and when I heard you could sign up for improv classes I signed up and I knew this is what I was meant for.”

As part of the program, Kneitz was set up with other students who performed improv together and used what they liked as the basis for writing musical sketches. One of those improv moments also gave the group its name.

“One day in class we were doing an exercise where the music director (Stephanie McCullough Vlcek) was doing musical freeze,” Kneitz said. “These two guys went out and she started playing this baroque style music. They started to sing ‘We are the ladies of the ladies club.' It was just so great. That was our name, we knew.”

The group performed a seven-week run at Second City's Donny's Skybox Theatre and they'll next be putting on the same production for the festival at 9 p.m. on Jan. 15. The show is called “We're Doing It Wrong” and each sketch presents a version of life not going as expected based on the real life experiences of members.

“One of the scenes I wrote is called ‘Lies,'” Kneitz said. “It's me and Dan Olson and we're a couple getting married and it's on our wedding day and we sing about the different lies that we've told each other. I was just thinking one day of all the lies I tell guys to spark their interest. But I don't do that any more.”

Posen attributes part of the growth of sketch comedy to the popularity of comedy websites such as Funny or Die and to improv performers looking for a different way to show off the material they've come up with. He oversees the beginning improv program at The Second City Chicago's Training Center and has seen an enormous boom in enrollment for classes. There were only 200 students studying improv, sketch and comedy writing when Posen started teaching in 1993, but now the program enrolls 2,600.

“The art form is just exploding,” Posen said. “What happens when we train all these artists is they need a venue to perform.”

Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival

<b>Where:</b> Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago, (773) 327-5252, <a href="http://chicagosketchfest.com ">chicagosketchfest.com </a>

<b>When:</b> Jan. 8 to 18

<b>Tickets:</b> $15 for a single performance: $150 for all performances

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