When Nuthouse Improv asked the audience how they were doing on Friday night, those in Jones Theatre in Daggy Hall replied by shouting back, “Catamaran.”

A kind of boat and a kind of inside joke with regular event-goers, the reply signaled the start of a show from a comedy group as old as many of its members.

Formed alongside the student theatre group Stage in 1998, whether it’s through WSU’s Student Entertainment Board (SEB) or through the CUB, the group is dedicated to bringing its brand of short-form, improvisational comedy to students.

In many ways it is this short-form that distinguishes Nuthouse Improv from other comedy troupes. As the night’s show progresses, the group rotates between three- to five-minute acts based on parameters intentionally whimsical and game-like, often using only a portion of the onstage cast at any given time.

There’s a certain hyperactive dizziness as Elias Nilsson jerkily flings himself across stage to go from being lame brother Jonathan O’Guin’s hairy mole to popular sister Chelsea Feiock’s abused cellphone in the improv game, “Human Prop.”

“A lot of the scenes are two to three people and none of us on stage know what’s going to happen until it happens,” Nillson said. “At that point we have to adapt, change, consider everything that’s said as a positive – as a truth – and run with it.”

Those performing rotate mid-act, creating internal epicycles, accentuated in “Good, Bad, Worst,” where members of the troupe rotate giving either good, bad, or horrible advice to life’s little problems. A member of the audience had a burning curiosity how one should handle having met Santa Clause, and received wisdoms ranging from O’Guin’s suggestion on pacing one’s consumption of hallucinogens to Natassja Haynes’ rendition of Eartha Kitt’s hit 1953 single, “Santa Baby.”

Many of the comedians find themselves on this stage in order to have some catharsis from the external world.

“It’s just a good way to have an outlet for the craziness from your classes and the mundane day-to-day stuff,” O’Guin said. “You come to Nuthouse and nobody cares what you say or how you say it. You can flop in a scene and nobody cares.”

In many ways it is this authenticity, which implies a possibility of relative failure, which attracts the crowd.

“I like being able to go because no improv show is the same,” Haynes said. “It’s blurring the line between the audience and the people on the stage.”

The performers find themselves benefitting in abstract ways. O’Guin believes that improv is great practice for negotiation in business and adaptation in conversation.

“Another big thing is that improv has this huge focus on the concept of ‘yes, and…,’” O’Guin said. “Where in improv you’re not supposed to negate somebody’s offer, you’re always supposed to accept it and add to it, and that’s just a great philosophy in life, too.”

The troupe is actively searching for new members. Nuthouse Improv meets in Daggy 225 on Thursdays at 4:10 p.m., and holds rehearsals on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5 p.m. Tickets to the rest of Nuthouse’s performances this semester cost $5.

This article has been updated for factual accuracy