New sketch comedy group to premiere Saturday

If someone asked sophomore Kyle Cowser about University Twits, IU’s newest comedy troupe, he wouldn’t be shy about his opinion.\n“I think we’re pretty hilarious,” the group’s leader said. \nThe University Twits – Cowser, juniors Ryan Perisin, Tim Boyle and Katie Haddad, sophomore Luke Hollingsworth, freshman Kyle Swick, and Ball State University alumnus Jack Dreesen– will make their debut performance at the Frangipani Room in the Indiana Memorial Union 10 p.m. Saturday. They will follow HoosOnFirst Improv’s “Best of Show” performance, which begins at 8:30. Both shows are free.\nHoosOnFirst President Josh Cohen said he was very excited about the double-header show. Cohen added that while “sketch comedy is something that’s very difficult and challenging,” he knows the group has been working hard on their writing and rehearsals.\n“I’m sure it’ll be good,” he said.\nUnion Board Comedy Director Anne Kostyo agreed, adding that the goal of the Twits leans more toward intellectual comedy.\n“I think it will appeal to a different crowd,” she said.\nCowser said they hope to evolve to intelligent comedy.\n“We’re working our way up to intellectualism,” he said. For the time being, “we’re going to try not to go for the easy laugh.” \nOn the topic of fart jokes, Cowser made a clear distinction.\n“There’s gonna be farting,” he said, but added that they would be “smart farts.”\nAmong the Twits, there is no single dominant writer.\n“We all write sketches. A lot of them are collaborative,” Cowser said. “If you have the same point of view, it gets stale.”\nThis doesn’t mean, however, that all sketches are considered equal. \n“I think ‘Paul’s Beard’ is the best thing ever,” Cowser said, though he freely admitted his own bias when it comes to the sketch, in which he plays the professor of a special topics class on “The Legend of Zelda.”\nAudience members can expect a wide range of sketch topics, from a Beatles press conference following John Lennon’s famous comment that the band was “bigger than Jesus,” to a retelling of “Kyle’s first sleepover,” written by Cowser himself.\n“I kind of exaggerate the details,” he admitted.\nThe show will begin with a “dedication to the improve troupes on campus,” then move on to other strange and hopefully wonderful sketches.\n“We make fun of Ken Nunn,” Cowser said. “We’ve got a sketch about a leprechaun.” \nBeyond making the audience laugh, Cowser said there is a higher mission for the troupe – “trying to spread love; love and destruction.”\nAs someone who has done both improvised and sketch comedy, Cowser said he thinks people expect more out of sketch comedy, but in his opinion, improv is harder.\nThe troupe name comes from the Elizabethan-era theater scene, Cowser said. The “university wits” were a group of English playwrights toward the end of the 16th century that included Cambridge grads Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene and Thomas Nashe and Oxford alums Thomas Lodge and George Peele. These literary pioneers paved the way for Shakespeare and provided a spoof-able title for a group of college comedians over 500 years later.