A show featuring alumni members of the improvisation group Hello Dali! will join current student members by performing in the show 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday in The Globe in the Doudna Fine Arts Center.

Grace Eldridge, freshman theatre arts major, said the group is an improvisation comedy group, and they play games and get the audience involved.

“When we play our games, (the audience) gives us scenarios and stuff like that, so we just go based off whatever the game is,” Eldridge said.

Blake Richardson, junior theatre arts major, said Seth Schroeder, an alumnus and Hello Dali! member, will teach the current members skills he learned from improv groups in St. Louis and Chicago at a workshop before the show Friday.

Gavin Peterson, president of Hello Dali! and senior applied engineering and technology major, said in a message Schroeder will be teaching skills including listening to a partner onstage, focusing on relationships and strong character choices.

“I think (the workshop) is something new they want to implement for us,” Eldridge said.

Richardson said members who join the group will always be in the group, so alumni are always welcome to come back.

Hello Dali! is a place for people who like to do comedy and make people laugh.

“We don’t have to take ourselves super seriously,” Richardson said.

He said it will be fun having alumni come back to perform in the Homecoming show.

“I am looking forward to seeing some else who comes in. I don’t know what’s going to happen, so let’s just see what happens,” Richardson said.

Hello Dali! performances are usually on Thursdays for one hour, but since this is a reunion or alumni show, the performance will last two hours, Richardson said.

Richardson said the show will be very informal.

“It’s not like the type of show where you pay your ticket, and you go and sit down, and you wait for the lights to dim, and (actor) performs,” he said.

Eldridge and Richardson said the performers are like puppets controlled by the audience from their suggestions.

Richardson said when audience members choose a scenario, there is a happy medium between choosing a broad scenario and a precise scenario.

“You can’t say you’re this guy walking down the street, but you also can’t say you’re this certain character from a sit com,” he said.

What the audience member should suggest is, the actor could be a guy walking down the street with a piece of gum stuck to his show, and he needs to get it off, Richardson said.

“You can’t go too precise and you can’t go too broad or the comedy doesn’t run that way. It’s hard for someone to feed off what you’re doing,” he said.

Eldridge said originality is important when it comes to choosing a scenario.

She said she is hoping more people will attend since alumni will be present and hopes the energy is more powerful.

Kennedy Nolen can be reached at 581-2812 or kdnolen@eiu.edu.