DePaul’s improv team, The Cosby Sweaters, is competing in this national improv tournament, taking place Saturday, March 10 in Chicago at the Mercury Theater.

16 teams that have been working toward this competition for over a year will battle it out in front of a panel of judges and the public for the 2011-2012 title.

CIF Productions’ Executive Director and CIT’s creator Jonathan Pitts says, “A great thing I like about this year’s Nationals is the wide range of improvisational performance styles. There are teams that do long-forms and teams that do games or musicals or scenes or story. There’s even a team that improvises with life-sized puppets they made themselves.”

Pitts continues, “Only two of the 16 teams have coaches, as all the other teams coach themselves, so they play from their own improvisational point of view. Most of these teams have been around as improv clubs on their campuses for 10 years or longer and most of the improvisers have been playing together as teammates for two to four years. We’ve got teams playing as small as three players and as big as 12 players. It’s been great to see how in just five years’ time CIT has reached critical mass, as we’ve gone from 16 teams and one regional in [the first year,] to 126 teams and 13 regionals in year number five. Plus, this year we added our first Canadian team!”

During the CIT Nationals, each team in the playoffs will get 20 minutes to perform whatever improv style that they want to. At the end of each playoff match, a panel of national judges made up of professional improv actors, teachers, directors and producers, watching both in the theater and on the free online webcast, will vote for the top team.

Each playoff match will have one winner who will automatically go into the championship match. Then the same process happens in the championship match and a national title winner is crowned.

Tickets for the playoff match are $10 for students and $15 for general admission. Championship match tickets are $15 for students and $20 for general admission. Tickets for the event are available online.

The playoffs will occur at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m. and the championship will take place at 9 p.m. on Saturday.