Like all events at the Waynesburg University’s Goodwin Performing Arts Center, WU’s Line is open to students and community members. For WU’s Line is it Anyway, which is based on the show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”, not only are the live performances open, but people are welcome to attend the practices as well.

Junior psychology major Jaime Stanny is in her second year of performing on stage. When Stanny was a freshman, she went to all of the live performances and also sat in on the rehearsals. This experience led her to try out for the show during her sophomore year.

“WU’s line has open rehearsals, so you can sit in on the practices and help write prompts,” Stanny said. “So, I did that the first year, and I think I definitely enjoyed being on stage a lot. I didn’t think I was cut out for it, but I auditioned anyway,” Stanny said.

According to Stanny, the cast has to prepare for up to five different improvisational games during the rehearsals.

“There are a ton of games, so we don’t know going into the show which one [Anthony Corkos] is going to put us in, so we have the practices to make sure that we don’t make idiots of ourselves.”

For Stanny, having an audience during rehearsals makes practicing more enjoyable and also gives the cast an idea of what would and would not work on stage.

“I think [having an audience] is great because it’s a lot more fun to take it seriously when there are other people watching,” Stanny said. “So, we learn what people on this campus think is funny based on their reactions to our jokes.”

Senior Anthony Corkos, also a psychology major, is in his third year as both director of “WU’s Line,” and the host on stage. Some of Corko’s responsibilities include running practices, writing prompts and choosing what games the cast will play during rehearsals so the cast members can be more familiar with them.

For Corkos, one of the challenges of directing is ensuring that the cast is comfortable with the material.

“One of the harder things is making sure for the shows at least the cast members are put into games and with prompts that they may work well with,” Corkos said. “So during practices, I really throw [the cast] into very experimental situations to see what they’re good and what they’re bad at. We work to capitalize on those strengths during a show.”

One of Corkos goals in preparing for the show is making sure the cast can show off what they do well.

“The show is all improvised, so a prompt could go really poorly,” Corkos said. “For shows, I try to capitalize on what the strengths of the performers are. So certain characters are better at playing more straight-laced people, other characters are better at doing more physical comedy. So I’ll throw the cast member in with characters that would most accentuate their strengths.”

Ben Dodge, sophomore pre-med major, and Tre Thomas, sophomore history major, assist Corkos in directing.

Corkos said that the most challenging thing about being a director is putting the right combinations of performers together for the show.

“Some people on casts have better chemistry than others, and it also depends on what games they’re in and what characters they’re given,” Corkos said. “It’s very hard to figure out what the right combinations are to do during a show.”

In his three years directing, Corkos said that one of the most significant improvements he’s made is with his writing, which used to take up a lot of time during practices.

“Going into it, writing prompts was very difficult, but I’ve gotten a lot better at that. It was originally a huge pain and I’d have to block out about two hours before every practice to write prompts and choose games and balance out everything. I’ve been doing very well with figuring that out now that it’s my senior year.”

According to Corkos, “WU’s Line” averages between 160-170 audience members per show. One of his goals is for attendance to eclipse 200, which Corkos said has never happened in his time at Waynesburg.

The next performance of “WU’s Line” will be Thursday, Dec. 7, at 9:30 p.m. with admission being $1. There will be two more shows after the December performance, one being in mid-to-late February, before the year wraps up, all shows are performed at the Goodwin Performing Arts Center.