Comedy groups flock to DSI festival

Comics from across the country are making their way to Chapel Hill this week for Dirty South Improv’s 15th annual North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival.

DSI owner Zach Ward started the comedy festival in 2001 in an attempt to bring improv acts from across UNC’s campus together. He wanted to bring a taste of Chicago-style improv — a skill he considers his expertise — to the South. What began as a way to centralize campus comedy quickly turned into an annual event that has generated national attention.

Ashley Melzer, associate artistic director of DSI, said the festival is a way to celebrate comedy and bring the comedy community together.

“It allows us to bring in the very best in the improv community to celebrate it in North Carolina where we have very few theaters who are doing it,” Melzer said.

Because the festival focuses on celebrating all forms of comedy and includes a variety of acts, Melzer said no single show should be considered more significant than another.

“We treat every show like a big show,” she said. “Here we’ve really put an emphasis on, ‘every show is important.’”

Cortland Cloos, a regular performer for DSI, said he thinks one of the most exciting things about the festival is the “Carolina’s Funniest Comic” feature.

“There were people that competed and were at the top four (from North Carolina and South Carolina),” he said. “And now we’ve all come together and there’s two from North Carolina and South Carolina.”

“Carolina’s Funniest Comic” uses audience votes at the end of the performances to determine the winner of a $1,000 grand prize.

UNC improv and sketch comedy group Chapel Hill Players, commonly known as CHIPS, will also be performing at the festival. Director of CHIPs and senior Miles Bonsignore said the group loves performing at the festival every year.

“It is like a music festival in that, groups from Chicago, from Los Angeles, from New York and I believe from out of the country as well come to perform comedy together,” Bonsignore said.

He described the atmosphere as inclusive and collaborative, allowing performers to support each other’s work.

“You get to meet performers who share your interests and are interested in similar things,” he said. “You get to go and hang out with them after and they’ll see your shows.”

Bonsignore explained that comedy allows people to understand others and interact without formality.

“It helps people stay fresh and interested in what they’re doing, without allowing them to have pretension about it, or being stuck in their ways, or taking themselves too seriously,” Bonsignore said.

“Comedy is the way to relate to people and everybody laughs, or they don’t, but I’m not interested in those kinds of people.”

arts@dailytarheel.com