RELIVING THE LAUGHS

Full Frontal Comedy members of past and present will join forces this Saturday to celebrate the student improvisational troupe's 10th anniversary with an alumni show. FFC alumni include IDS-featured syndicated columnist Harlan Cohen, former "Mad TV" cast member Nicole Parker, members of Chicago's world-renowned comedy troupe The Second City and other comedians from around the country.\nTrue to improvisational form, the "who and what" of Saturday's show remains to be seen.\n"I'm just gonna be like, whatever you guys wanna do, do," says FFC President Kevin McKernan, a junior. "I don't know all of who will be there or what the show is gonna be like. I'm just excited to hang out with these guys."\nFormer troupe member Jeremiah Jordan is thrilled that FFC has come this far. \n"When I was a freshman, there was a senior in the group [Derek Miller] whose goal was to keep FFC going for 10 years," Jordan says. "So we're all quite stoked about it."\nThe troupe has experienced many peaks and valleys since its formation in April 1994. Audiences have reached as many as 500 people, a turnout so overwhelming shows had to relocate from their original venues to the Indiana Memorial Union Alumni Hall. They've also had smaller shows in the basement of McNutt Quad for only five people. \nFFC's exclusive roster changes constantly as members graduate and new hopefuls, in turn, audition. There were nine people in the founding group; FFC is, at present, four people large. \nJordan feels the constant flow of people in and out of the troupe has contributed to its ultimate success.\n"Full Frontal has a genesis of sorts," he says. "Each group, not necessarily every year but a lot of the time, finds its own style. It changes as the people in the group change. Through auditions, Full Frontal picks the best; they don't settle for one particular style. It keeps the group evolving." \nMcKernan is content with a small group, but hopes it can expand after auditions are held in a few weeks.\n"It's tough," he says. "It's kind of a rolling admission process of people coming and people leaving. Everyone has different ideas of what's funny, and when you're improvising it's really hard because sometimes things work and sometimes they don't. But it just keeps on going. That's the important thing, that it keeps going. Because you never know who's gonna be out there who needs to laugh."\nThe first week of his freshman year, McKernan says he hated life. Wandering listlessly around campus one afternoon, a flier on the Ballantine kiosk caught his eye. "Full Frontal Comedy -- Bloomington Improv and Sketch Comedy!" At the bottom of the flier, a sentence in small print grabbed his attention: "Forget for one night that you hate life." \n"I was like, that sounds like me!" says McKernan, who had done improv theater in high school. "I'll go to this thing!"\nThat evening, FFC wrapped up the show with its traditional closing sketch "The Nightmare" in which a member of the audience is brought onstage to describe his or her day in detail. The troupe then reenacts the day as though it were a dream, and hilarity ensues. McKernan was chosen as the evening's nightmare victim. He stood onstage and described his day to the troupe, including the particulars regarding his girlfriend of three years breaking up with him the day he left for college.\nThen FFC worked its magic.\n"It was the funniest thing I'd ever seen," says McKernan, one of the current troupe's oldest members. "It was one of those moments when nothing else mattered. It was magical, I remember sitting there laughing at myself and loving it. I just felt so much better about everything. That was something special. I auditioned the next week, and that's how I got involved."\nJordan is no stranger himself to the thrill of improv comedy. \n"I caught the improv bug at an early age. I saw something in it that I loved -- I knew I wanted to do improv forever."\nWhen members of the troupe invited friends to come out with them after shows, Jordan remembers feeling sorry for those who accepted the invitation. Those innocent friends were doomed to an evening of exclusion. The only thing anyone in the troupe would talk about was what had taken place onstage. \n"Even if the person had seen the show, it's still the troupe saying, 'Do you remember when...?' 'Yeah! And do you remember when...?'" Jordan says. "Because we had to talk about it. Improv is spontaneous, improv is instantaneous and after that night, it's gone."\nSaturday's alumni show, a joint production of Full Frontal Comedy and the Union Board, will be held in the IMU Gallery at 9 p.m. The event is free of charge -- no kidding.\n"It's hard to talk about comedy seriously because, you know, it's this thing you laugh at," says McKernan. "But I think it's really important to get people together at this big university and have them in a room together, laughing. I'm happy Full Frontal's made it 10 years. I hope it makes it for a long time"