Imagine a sketch show where the writers receive a new theme and a new cast on Monday and bring the show to life by Sunday. It may seem impossible, but Zachary Baez and Mason Atkinson are making it happen with their sketch variety show “Manything!”

“It’s the insane amount of cortisol going through your bloodstream when you’re starting a week on a Monday, and you don’t know what the show is,” Baez said.

Baez and Atkinson present the show at the iO Theater, an improv theater in Lincoln Park. They produce and direct the show while also contributing with sketches they write as host characters. The pieces they write and perform serve as a link between the sketches of other playwrights.

“We find a justification for those host characters, and we do our intro and our outro and a middle beat at some point,” Baez said. “We try to find that pretty early.”

On Monday, the writers come with pitches. On Friday, Baez said they bring “almost complete scripts” for the final edits from the directors. On Sunday, the team does a technical rehearsal and performs.

“A lot of the sketch shows you do find are people who are doing two-year-old, three-year-old, decade-old material, and it’s not interesting,” Baez says. “We write our show entirely within a week to a specific theme.”

The three initial shows in January were based on the themes fantasy, war and funk.

The directors said they choose broad themes that writers might interpret differently and that worked well for the audiences in their previous theater experiences. The team puts the entire show together a week before the performance in hopes that the material stays up to date and never repeats.

“The name of the game is making it easy to approach with different angles,” Baez said.

The core team for the show is only four people: Baez, Atkinson, Hatcher Shea and Ben Greenly. The rest of the crew is open cast with a chance for anyone to apply.

“You want to be in the show?” Baez said. “Shoot me an email, send me something, let me see if I like it.”

After moving to Chicago about a year ago, Baez and Atkinson reached out to iO Theater and got the chance to present “Manything!” in a big city.

“We got this theater, which we shouldn’t have, but they gave it to us anyway …,”  Baez said. “They just want to do good shows and have fun. People want to help you — you just need to know how to ask and know who to ask.”

Sometimes the show’s team reaches out to writers. Sometimes the writers come to them through personal connections or recommendations. Many who join the show’s crew come from DePaul.

Atkinson is a graduate student at DePaul majoring in comedy screenwriting. During his time  at DePaul, he’s met people who contribute to the “Manything!” production.

Shea, a DePaul sophomore who’s majoring in directing and minoring in comedy filmmaking, met Atkinson in a comedy class at Second City. Shea says that despite the fast pace of the work process, the performances flow naturally, transitioning scenes and even shows into each other.

“It’s goofy and relaxed, and kind of everything you want to do as long as it’s inspired,” Shea said, now being a technical director on the show. “It’s really cool … watching it grow within a week, and then completely doing it over again.”

Casting a new crew each week gives Baez the opportunity to work with talented writers who would not be available for a long-term project, “a model that allows me to sort of cheat and get people that I shouldn’t be able to get,” he said.

The process of creating a show in a week is stressful, but the adrenaline rush and anxiety motivate the team.

“The only motivation I’m able to find is a system like this,” Baez said. “It’s insane, but I need that stress. … I need to feel crazy to feel regular.”

At the Jan. 18 show, audience members quickly filled the empty space with sounds of laughter and applause.The show only had around 20 attendees, which Baez was not frustrated about since the cast “could easily have nobody” as the Bears were playing a game that same night.

The audience actively engaged with the performers, whose theme for the night was war.

Al Duffy, an audience member who came to support a friend in the show, said the performance was “true to the form of sketch comedy” where each sketch was “on the outskirts” of the original idea. She said performers went for untraditional ways of approaching the themes instead of going for the first idea that came to mind.

The “Manything!” team is ready for growth and hopes to secure a regular spot as a biweekly show on the iO Theater schedule.

“I believe in the show, and so I’d like to continue it in whatever way I can,” Baez said.

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