Sketch Comedy Festival plans come together

The weeks just before and after New Year's Day are usually the slowest in the theater scene. But not for Chicago director, teacher and writer Brian Posen. In those weeks, Posen and his staff have been finalizing things for the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival.

"The Seventh Annual Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival," Posen said, emphasizing the Seventh, "I can't believe it."

What started as a small event, thrown together in roughly eight weeks when a show Posen was working on fell through, has grown into a nationally recognized festival attracting 100 sketch comedy troupes from all over North America.

"I remember that first festival, we had 33 groups in it," Posen said with a laugh, adding that pretty much anyone who applied for a spot got in.

"This year we had to turn away about 100 groups," Posen said, "and good groups too. We have 100 groups in this year's festival, 125 performances, plus extra events. The competition is incredible, because people recognize we are in Chicago, where it is happening in sketch comedy."

Posen is referring to the fact that Chicago is a known incubator for comedy. Name a hot comedy actor -- Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, to name just four -- and chances are they cut their teeth here.

"Applicants also know that we bend over backwards to make it all work," Posen said. "We have a staff of 50. We work all year round on this. We make sure it is a well-oiled machine and that there are very few surprises."

The folks at the Theatre Building know this, too. The festival uses all three of the theater spaces in the building on Belmont.

"For two weeks we just take over the Theater Building," Posen said. "They give us the keys and they go home. They know we will return the place cleaner than we got it. It is so nice to have people like the folks at the Theater Building who are positive and believe in you."

This year's festival includes a handful of groups who have been at all six previous festivals: Stir Friday Night!, Back Row, Eclectic Muse, Monsters of the Id, and Posen's own comedy troupe, The Cupid Players.

But the event also includes "three gals from NYC spoofing a 1940s type radio hour," The Apple Sisters; a couple of top-rated Canadian comedy troupes, Approximately 3 Peters and Boiled Weiners; and Back Pack Picnic, a group from another hotbed of comedy -- Austin, Texas,.

Plus the festival will feature two popular events, Octa-Sketch, in which four teams are given eight hours to create a 30-minute sketch comedy show, to be performed later that evening, and Sketchubator, a Saturday midnight show in which participants are given five minutes to try out a new scene or concept.

Why does Posen think the festival has been so successful? "A number of things," Posen said, sounding like the Columbia College teacher he is. "Good timing. We started the festival just after the improv boom of the 1990s. The scene was already in transition from improv to sketch comedy when we started.

"There is a lot of talent out there," Posen said. "The level is amazingly high. And we at the festival make sure the atmosphere celebrates the artist and we make sure they want to come back."

Then he pauses to reflect on his festival's success.

"Seven years," Posen said. "It blows me away."