Adithya Sambamurthy/Daily Texan Staff Ace Manning and Jeremy Lamb arm wrestle in a Well Hung Jury performance Friday at The Hideout. This show was Manning's last with the improv group. [Click to enlarge]

[Click to enlarge]

It's a Friday night, and the members of the UT comedy troupe Well Hung Jury are about to go on stage. None of them knows a single line of their performance.

But everything is going according to plan, for the Well Hung Jury's specialty is improvisation.

This is how their shows work: The group comes up with a theme for the evening, say, a murder mystery or a twisted fairy tale, and fields suggestions for settings and characters from the audience. The story and the show just grow from there.

"What would be the last thing you say to a person who was dying?" they might ask. And the answers from the audience - whether vulgar or serious - are then worked into the performance in any way the group can.

"We go with the answers that inspire us to do our greatest," said Jeff Amos, an English senior and group member.

The group officially formed four years ago at the University after originally meeting through their theater classes at Austin's Westwood High School. The nine original members had performed comedy routines together in high school and decided to become an official UT organization once in college.

The members are drawn to improv because they love the thrill of being on stage in front of an audience. All of them plan on pursuing some aspect of theater as a career once college is over, said Ben Sterling, a theater senior and group member.

"This is [our] theater outlet," Sterling said. "Ultimately, we all want to perform and can't live without it."

The spontaneity of what they do is one reason the members enjoy doing improvisational comedy, but director and radio-televison-film senior Jeremy Lamb says he likes it because it is "disposable."

"You do live improv, and it just kind of happens, and if you missed it, it's too bad," Lamb said. "That's the sweetness of it - it will never be done again, and you get to be part of it."

Well Hung Jury doesn't perform the kind of improv seen on the popular ABC show Whose Line is it Anyway? That show, filled with short skits and games, is known as "short-form" improv, which the UT group normally does for its warm-ups and rehearsals. For its actual shows, the group performs "long-form" improv, which in the case of Well Hung Jury is improvised stories played over a span of an hour to an hour and a half.

Because improv is an art form that relies on spontaneity, there is always the risk of not pleasing the audience.

"We experiment as much as possible, and sometimes we fall on our face or we do great," Amos said. "A million different things can go wrong, but when it goes right, it's great."

The group experiments by trying to top their previous performance.

"Every show is different than the one we've done before," said Jon Benner, a radio-television-film senior and group member. "We try to outdo ourselves each time."

Outdoing themselves has included taking the audience with them around campus while they perform in different odd locations, such as an elevator.

Andrea Coleman, a music sophomore, went to Westwood High School with most of the members and said they've only improved as they've gotten older.

"They were still young [in high school], so their comedy has matured a lot since then," Coleman said. "They've grown more comfortable together. They know each other's comedy. I think their dynamic has gotten a lot better."

Members of the group agree, and their easy familiarity and chemistry - some go as far back as elementary school - shows in their performances, as they play off each other.

"There's definitely a feeling of history and continuity," said Jordan Maxwell, a theater senior and group member. "These are my best friends. Knowing each other [helps out in the performance] because you see what they are trying to go with."

And of course, it also helps that they're funny, Sterling said.

"It's the growth and the ability the group has that makes us damn good," he said.

The original group has been supplemented by three new members.

Audrey Sansom, a theater and dance sophomore, is the newest member, having joined the group in 2001, and the only one who didn't attend Westwood High School. She explained how every performance can be a hurdle.

"The hardest thing is letting go of your inhibitions and [being] willing to do anything that is asked of you," Sansom said. "Sometimes you do things you never thought you would do before. After every show, I get more confident."

Sansom is also one of only two girls in Well Hung Jury. She said her performance is often hampered by the fact that she's a woman.

"Suddenly, the roles you have are very limited," Sansom said. "Unless you want to have multiple roles, you have to be a stock character."

Their popularity has grown as the group has grown - students are beginning to know who they are and what they do. Marie Cassandra, a psychology sophomore, said she likes Well Hung Jury for the group's different style of humor and outrageous stunts.

"They to go outside the box of comedy," Cassandra said. "They don't get dull, and [they] do things you would never think of. I find my friends, and I always laugh."

Group members say they hope to push the boundaries of comedy even further in this, their fourth year.

"This year we're going to be more hard-core, meaning really big shows and do crazy things, [and] spend more money on production," Benner said.

The troupe performs at clubs around the city such as The Hideout to make money. They do have free shows on campus regularly - the only downside being that audiences aren't treated to the edgier comedy the group performs at comedy clubs for patrons who pay.

"Free shows are less experimental, so we don't scare off the audience," Amos said. "We try to present a show where we can still be ourselves but not startle the people from what is known as improv."

The group's next performance is this Friday at Batts Auditorium at 8 p.m. Admission is free.

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