The energy leading up to the show buzzes with both excitement and curiosity, as no one knows what’s coming, not even the performers pacing backstage. At the student-run show, “CAT-urday Night Live,” improv rules the stage, chaos is encouraged and the only guarantee is laughter. 

The Creative Art and Theatre department of Campus Events and Entertainment will put on “CAT-urday Night Live” as their spring show from April 10-12 at 7 p.m. in the William C. Powers Auditorium. The performance, described as unfiltered and inspired by Saturday Night Live, contains no prior scripts and rules for the stage people to follow. Annie Adams, a government senior and actress, said this will be the first time the organization has done something with a large amount of audience input.

“It is not an annual thing — it’s the first time it’s been done at UT,” Adams said. “We have key points to hit, (to keep it) interesting for the audience (and) to make sure that the audience gets … (what they want to) be said or done on stage.”

Anaiah Matthews, a political communications senior and the performance’s producer, said audience members will get to control what happens in the show.

“It’s sort of a mad lib style thing, and so (audience members) choose the skits that they want,” Matthews said. “There are different prompts and stuff that we’ll put in there, (audience members) choose them, we put them in a fish bowl and we run with it.”

Matthews said actors practice numerous skits to prepare for any circumstance.

“Our directors are great about just throwing out things,” Matthews said. “When you throw out something as an improv actor, your job is to roll with it, and so our actors get a whole bunch of different scenarios.”

Adams said growing into their character archetypes helps with the upcoming unpredictability of the play.

“I love improv, and we started out by doing improv practices without even thinking of our characters,” Adams said. “Then we started building upon our archetypes, doing improv scenes in the archetype that we were given (and building) it up even more. Every night, it’ll be something different, but we have a structure that we follow.”

Niyati Jain, a psychology sophomore and the performance’s technician, said she likes the dynamic between the actors and backstage staff.

“I think everyone’s really appreciative of each other, and we all see each other’s efforts,” Jain said. “It’s so nice to feel like you’re part of a team and working towards something bigger.”

Jain said she hopes the audience gets a few good laughs out of the play.

“I hope (the audience) thinks ‘How much of that was really improv?’ because there have been some sketches where I’ve just died laughing, and I had no idea how much of it was planned because it went so serendipitously,” Jain said. “Their chemistry is so good that they just bounce right off each other flawlessly.”

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article misidentified Niyati Jain as “Jane,” and Anaiah Matthews as a tech director, rather than the proper title of producer. The Texas regrets this error.