Two weeks before student cyclists hit the track for the Little 500, student comedians will step on stage for the Funny 501 festival.
The Funny 501, a play on words inspired by the title of the historical bike race, is IU’s only comedy festival produced in collaboration by student troupes and is broadcasted by Not Too Late, IUSTV’s late night comedy show.
Whether it be improv, sketch or even stand-up, Funny 501 allows students the opportunity to experience the different kinds of comedy that IU troupes have to offer.
The 2025 festival begins at 8 p.m. April 11 and 12 in room 015 of the Fine Arts building. Night one will be dedicated to sketch comedy performances and night two will feature improv comedy performances, as well as an Improv Jam at the end.
Throughout both nights of Funny 501, members of Ladies’ Night Comedy, a stand-up comedy group composed of women and nonbinary comedians, will be performing five minute stand-up sets. Lilly Newman, IU sophomore and member of Ladies’ Night, will be performing as one of three stand-up comedians on the first night of the festival. Newman’s set will be a short collection of jokes that she has perfected this year at other Ladies’ Night shows.
“With Funny 5 and stuff, you kind of collect all your best material to perform,” Newman said. “So, what we've been doing recently is, like, keeping track of the really good jokes, and hopefully it’ll make this the best set of the whole year.”
Along with stand-up from Ladies’ Night Comedy, night one of Funny 501 will include sketch features from Boy in the Bubble Comedy and Backdoor Comedy. While shorter than their typical shows, both groups will be given 30 minutes to perform sketches of their choosing. Boy in the Bubble’s portion of Funny 501 will be a “best of” set, featuring the group’s past sketches that they loved enough to perform again.
Sarah Warf, an IU junior and one of Boy in the Bubble’s co-presidents, isn’t just performing in Funny 501 — she’s also helping to plan it. Warf has been working with the various comedy groups at IU to plan a show that is both fun for performers and attendees.
“There are so many funny, talented people that participate in comedy at IU and this is a very unique experience to get to see them all wrapped up into two nights of shows,” Warf said. “It's like Coachella, if Coachella was free and less sweaty and Lady Gaga was a college student making fart jokes in Fine Arts 015.”
When it comes to collaboration however, it’s the second night of Funny 501 that features the most teamwork among groups. Along with two more stand-up sets from Ladies’ Night members and 30-minute improv sets from Full Frontal Comedy and Backdoor Comedy, the final night of Funny 501 will feature an Improv Jam.
Lasting for 30 minutes, the Improv Jam will allow members of any comedy group to join forces with comedians they don’t normally perform with. For groups like Full Frontal and Backdoor Comedy, whose shows consist of mostly if not entirely improv, the Improv Jam will provide a chance to interact with new performers. But for IU’s sketch or stand-up-based groups, this addition to the festival will also give them a chance to break out of their comedic comfort zone.
Kyle Rassel, an IU senior and member of Full Frontal Comedy, is one of the comedians excited about the opportunities that working together for the Improv Jam will bring. Not only will he get to perform improv with fellow members of Full Frontal, whose set will heavily feature the musical improv the group performs, but he’ll also get to experience improv with a new group of performers. It’s this exploration of the comedy community at IU that makes Funny 501 such a fun experience for Rassel.
“What we have is so rare, we've talked to people from other schools, and they don't have a network like this,” Rassel said. “They don't have this many people who are so eager to perform comedy and stuff like that. And so we want to take advantage of it as much as we can. I love that once a year I get to collaborate with people that I don't usually get to collaborate with.”
The mission of Funny 501 is to create a community of IU comedians, as well as a community for anyone interested in performing or attending comedy events at IU. Logan Vaught, an IU senior and performer in Backdoor Comedy, is one of the main organizers for the event along with Warf. He understands that April is a busy time for most IU students as the year wraps up and thinks that Funny 501 is the perfect opportunity for people to take a break from school and just laugh for a bit.
“When we're at our lowest, and we're at these really dark times, we can come together and laugh about things,” Vaught said. “To laugh is to feel that relief, to feel that happiness come through your body. And I think that it’s more important than ever right now to just laugh and to provide levity in a time where people might be feeling like they're in a darker spot.”
More information about the comedy festival can be found on the Funny 501 Instagram.
Editor’s note: A member of the IDS is part of Full Frontal at IU but was not involved in the editing of this story.
