Full Frontal celebrates 15 years of exposure

For over a decade, members of the Full Frontal Comedy troupe having been exposing themselves to unsuspecting students. This weekend, they’re going to celebrate it.

At 9 p.m. Saturday the improv troupe will commemorate its 15-year anniversary in the Frangipani Room of the Indiana Memorial Union by bringing together founding alumni and others from the group’s past for a show unlike any it has done before, said member and junior Lauren Schaefer.

“As of right now we have 15 alumni coming back,” she said. “We’re going to be performing in different groups, so the current cast will perform, then the midrange cast will perform, the original cast, and then we’ll all perform together.”

Included in the event, co-sponsored by Union Board, will be previous members who have gone on to make a name for themselves in the public eye, including co-founders Jill Benjamin and Derek Miller.

Benjamin, who began the group in 1995 while studying journalism at IU, has since  starred in a two-person comedy show with “Saturday Night Live” writer and comedian Seth Meyers, as well as had a recurring role on “My Name is Earl,” among others. Miller has gone on to write and star in the Comedy Central show “Secret Girlfriend.”

Benjamin said she credits the troupe with starting her career.

“Full Frontal Comedy helped reinforce the fact that I knew that I wanted to go into comedy,” she said. “I studied journalism at IU and speech communication and I didn’t do theater because I knew that I didn’t want to have anything to do with ‘Macbeth’ or Shakespeare.”

The group began 15 years ago after Benjamin began taking summer classes at Chicago’s The Second City comedy theater and school. After returning to Bloomington, she discovered the city only offered one venue for comedians in Bear’s Place.

Benjamin joined with Miller and other comedians on campus to form Full Frontal Comedy. They performed their first show in the Union basement, previously known as Kiva. Benjamin said there were about 20 people in the crowd the first night but around 200 during her last.

As part of the show, the groups will perform in what she referred to as a “living-room format.” The groups will stage an actual conversation, then use parts of it to set up scenes for their improv.

“All of our suggestions for our performances come from the audience, whether it be our short-form improvisational games or whether it be the montage,” she said. “If we need a location or a relationship or if we need a personality quirk, those all come from the audience. It’s very interactive.”

The alumni will also hold a series of six workshops on the development of improvisational skills for the public. The topics will vary in theme, ranging from character development to hip-hop improvisation.

On Friday, the current members of Full Frontal will perform their regular bi-weekly show with former members in attendance.

Schaefer said the group wants to use this weekend as a thank you to the original members, as well as a venue for helping entertain for students and the general public.

“All of these really established comediennes came from IU and now they’re going to be able to come back and share their skills and their comedy with the public,” she said. “School pride and student organization pride; it’ll be great.”