“On Thursday ZTV will be broadcasting a live comedy show from Daum Theater in Kolbe Hall. The show will feature ZTV’s own comedy team the Akron After Hours. The show is free to all University of Akron students and doors open at 5:30 p.m. with the show at 6:00 p.”
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On Thursday ZTV will be broadcasting a live comedy show from Daum Theater in Kolbe Hall. The show will feature ZTV’s own comedy team the Akron After Hours. The show is free to all University of Akron students and doors open at 5:30 p.m. with the show at 6:00 p.m. No one will be allowed to enter the show after it has started because it will be broadcasted live over ZTV.

Amber Manfredi is the producer of Akron After Hours. Manfredi said this is not the first time ZTV put on a live show.

Last semester ZTV put on its first live broadcast show and it was a huge success, Manfredi said. Last year we had well over 100 students come to the event. We are expecting the same if not a better turn out than last semester.

According to Manfredi, the goal of the live event was to do a Saturday Night Live type show.

We got together with the Theater Department to see what we could do, and collectively we decided to put on a show and broadcast it live, she said.

Phil Hoffman, the General Manager of ZTV, elaborated on why ZTV is putting on a live show.

Many of our alumni have graduated and gotten jobs at places like The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson or The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Hoffman said. What we hear back from them is that they wish they had had an opportunity in school to work out their comedy material in front of a live audience, because that experience is so different from doing a sketch comedy show more in the style of MadTV. 

Hoffman said that led him to talks with the Theater Department about doing something live.

They have lots of experience, obviously, performing in front of audiences and they have been helping ZTV students learn how to make something like this work, Hoffman said. We couldn’t do it with out people like Professor Stephen Skiles, Jeremy Sayer and Chris Hariasz from theater. They have been really instrumental in helping ZTV students learn what it takes to do live, theatrically-based TV.

The type of comedy, according to Hoffman, that should be expected from the Akron After Hours group is similar to the show Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, which airs on Cartoon Network. If people have watched Tim and Eric Awesome Show, that should give them an idea. Sort of Dali-esque, or Dadaist humor. Randomness, Hoffman said.

Manfredi said the group performing live consists of a very zany and random group.

They will be doing sketch comedy skits live as well as showing some previously taped ones, she said. It should be a rip roaring good time. Plus there will be free pizza and prize giveaways.

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