On Saturday night, Stefanie Black, pictured, and the other members of Just the Funny present the School's Out Spectacular, a 90-minute high-energy interactive show featuring sketches, parodies, music and improvised scenes, including everything from Whose Line Is It Anyway to Saturday Night Live, all based on your suggestions. The 9 p.m. show is family friendly; anything goes at the 11 p.m. show; Museum of Science & Planetarium, 3280 S. Miami Ave., Miami; 305-693- 8669 or www.justthefunny.com; $10 for 9 p.m.; $5 for 11 p.m., $12 for both shows; students free.

School’s out for summer and it’s time to get wild and wacky -- or wacky and wild -- whichever comes first. To help ease the transition from homework to no work, the Just the Funny improv comedy troupe is offering students free tickets to tonight’s 9:00 (family-friendly) and 11:00 (mature -- well, sort of) “School’s Out Spectacular” shows. The event marks the kickoff of a month-long deal for middle and high school students (with valid school ID). That’s right, kids, you can see the 9:00 p.m. shows for free throughout June. “We were once in school and broke too,” says troupe member Alex Perdomo. “We just want to give these kids something to laugh about.” Things will get nutty at the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium. Tickets (for those too cool for school) cost $10 for the early show, $5 for the later, or $12 for both. Call 305-693-8669, or visit www.justthefunny.com.

When Chapel Hill native Zach Ward started the festival in 2001, he was joined by three improv groups, 27 improvisers and two teachers. This year, he welcomes more than 430 improvisers and teachers. The festival -- which includes workshops as well as performances -- is as much a conference for improvisers as it is a showcase for both established and up and coming improv teams.

Ward considers the Dirty South Improv Festival part of the top three improv festivals in the country after the Chicago Improv Festival in April and the Del Close Marathon at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City in August.

Dirty South Improv -- which includes the Carrboro comedy theater and traveling college tour as well as the festival -- is solidly on the radar of the improv subculture. Ward, founder and owner of Dirty South Improv, helps produce the Chicago festival. Improvisers from the Upright Citizens Brigade will be performing at the Dirty South Improv Festival. Teams from the festival have performed at both Chicago and New York events.

David Christopher wanted to be a part of the DSI festival because of "how good it is." Like Ward, Christopher also trained under The Second City in Chicago and Upright Citizens Brigade.

Christopher is half of the Miami improv duo Duocity, one of the teams participating in the DSI festival. He is also executive producer of the Miami Improv Festival and is coming to the festival to improve as well as perform.

"We're really big on watching other people's shows and learning from them," Christopher said.

Ward, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate, spent four years working with the Chicago improv scene before returning permanently to Orange County in June 2004. He still goes back to Chicago for two months each year for the Chicago Improv Festival. But Carrboro is his home for good, and he hopes it will be an improv hub, too, in a different way than improv in Chicago and New York.

"If you're doing improv in Carrboro, you're not worried about standing out. Improvisers support each other. It's a team," he said.

"You go to New York or Chicago to study improv if you want to be seen and go on to Saturday Night Live," said Ward, who worked with current SNL cast member Amy Poehler when she was an improviser for Upright Citizens Brigade.

"If you want to study the art of improv, come and relax, drink some sweet tea, have a mild winter and play with DSI."

Playing is at the heart of improv for Ward.

The reason the local stage is called Dirty South Improv Comedy Theater, not comedy club, shows the difference between stand-up comedy and improv comedy, he said. Stand-up comedians work alone. Improvisers work together.

"It's much more compelling than stand-up," Ward said. "In stand-up, there's something to prove. I wanted to play. The audience can see us play. At the theater, you're going to experience live performance."

Ward started the Chapel Hill High School improv company while he was a student there in the early 1990s. CHHS and East Chapel Hill High School's improv groups are participants alongside the professionals at the DSI festival. (Dirty South Improv features high school improv groups every Sunday at the DSI Comedy Theater.)

"I wanted to give them a showcase. I would put Chapel Hill High School's improv company against a number of professional teams. They're dedicated to the art form," Ward said.

His love of improv stems from what everyone wants -- to be loved. He feels that on stage four times a week and it is intoxicating, he said.

For Jason Curtis, improvisation was filed under the "things he always wanted to do" category of his life. He joined the subculture a year ago as a student at N.C. State University. After taking classes and working the DSI box office, now he is an associate producer of the festival. Curtis will also perform with one of the house teams, Community Bike.

"It is an honor to be a member of a team that was such an integral part of me falling so madly in love with improv as a whole," Curtis said.

Out-of-state improv teams -- other than Chicago and New York -- hail from Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Florida, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Indiana, Michigan, California, Missouri and Virginia. Some have local ties. The artistic director for Upright Citizens Brigade is a former Chapel Hill improviser. Festival teacher and performer Eric Hunicutt is a UNC Chapel Hill graduate.

For more information or tickets to the festival, visit http://festival.dirtysouthimprov.com or call the DSI box office at 338-8150.

Why did the chicken cross the road? “Well, that is an excellent question,” says Jack Reda, a man who wears a chicken suit for a living. “I don’t know if I can answer it now. It would ruin it for anyone who is going to come to the show” – namely, the “Boneless Chicken Cabaret,” one of a whopping 50 presentations at this year’s Miami Improv Festival. The chicken show – presented by Reda’s troupe, the District of Columbia’s Unscripted Players (D-CUP) – is a combination of “improvisation, sketch comedy, music, dance, and interactive theater, performed by men dressed as chickens. Without speaking any intelligible English, the chickens explore birth, art, karate, and more.” The chicken’s motivation for crossing the infamous road is indeed “one of the mysteries of the universe that we try to unravel,” says Reda. He also notes the date – Friday the 13th – and says, “It’s a little bit scary… and we will certainly try to exploit that.” The festival is the brainchild of Miami improv troupe Just the Funny. While many of their peers ran off to Chicago, New York, or L.A. to pursue comedy, only to disappear in an overcrowded pool of unemployed wannabes, the cast of Just the Funny went wee-wee-wee all the way to… well, just over to the Miami Museum of Science and Planetarium, where they hunkered down and perfected their craft with weekly shows. After several years of toiling away on home turf, the group now has traffic moving the other direction, as the country’s funniest folks head south to the museum for the troupe’s now-nationally-renowned fest. For example, on Friday evening alone, D-CUP will be joined by national acts like the clever and subversive Upright Citizens Brigade (they perform at 8 p.m.) and the Groundlings (whose alumni include Will Ferrell and Phil Hartman; they perform at 9). Jupiter’s aptly-named improv troupe Gated Community goes on at 7; and a program called Inside the Out-of-work Actors’ Studio starts at 10. (“Join host ‘James Tetley’ as he re-lives [these actors’] single high, and most importantly, their multitude of lows through an in-depth interview and a look back at their very short demo reel.”) Through Jan. 15, $8 to $25, 866-468-7630. http://www.miamiimprovfestival.com Miami Museum of Science, 3280 S Miami Ave, Miami.

The festival will include the South Florida debut of the Upright Citizens Brigade, the return of The Groundlings, and workshops led by comics from Second City. Overall there will be 50 events. The three troupes are without doubt the real farm teams of American comedy, particularly of the fast, edgy, and surprising variety hilariously represented by now-famous alumni such as Lisa Kudrow, Will Ferrell, and half the casts of Mad TV and Saturday Night Live.

It doesn't take a genius to predict that many of the young comedians scheduled to improvise their stuff this weekend are set to follow in those funny footsteps. As for the workshops, well, do you think you're funny? Here's a chance to expose yourself in public. Big time — with the pros, and among whatever peers you choose, from little kids and teens to seasoned veterans.

"We're not just a weeklong event that comes into town and then leaves," Christopher says. "We're local, and our mission is really to cultivate an improv community in Miami. The shows are great, but the workshops are a huge component of the festival: to get people involved not just by watching but by doing. You learn the improv lingo, the ground rules, you are immersed in comedy. And the great thing is we get not just the general public but also some really experienced improvisers.

"And our workshops are small. We keep them really limited in size so instructors can really come in and teach."

Can you teach anyone to be funny? Christopher, a comedian who is set to headline three shows this weekend, believes that "people are either innately funny or not funny, and some are funnier than others."

But, he adds, "Improv doesn't necessarily have to be funny either — there are a lot of dramatic improv acts."

More and more acting exercises as well as new full-length plays and musicals begin with improvisation, with audience suggestions. Just don't go for the obvious. "I always tell people it's not just about comedy," Christopher says. "The more you try to be funny, the less funny you'll usually be. You don't find love, love finds you; it's the same thing with improv. You find your own voice, and comedy finds you. We can prepare people to be funny, to allow themselves to find their voices."

And to be surprised. The one sure thing about improvising from audience suggestions — as many of these acts routinely do — is you can't ever be sure what's next. A man walks into a bar, Dubya walks into a door — who knows? Depending on the mood, the weather, or the crowd, the festival might move toward bathroom jokes, political barbs, slapstick, or intricate wordplay. "The cool thing about improv," Christopher says, "is that you have to be quick to connect references. You find out what the audience wants, and you give it to them instantly. You have to adapt instantly."

Perhaps the most adept at adapting are I Sebastiani, a Boston troupe billed as "the greatest commedia dell'arte troupe in the entire world" that is making its local debut at the festival. Their masks hark to the Renaissance, and their stock characters, including Arlecchino and Pantalone, are archetypes. But their plots come from the audience and — within the rough scenario that begins it all — their humor is of the streets.

From Los Angeles, where the film industry makes live theater feel like an endangered species, come The Groundlings, definitely live and now celebrating the troupe's 31st season. Its history is rich, and the list of comedy all-stars who first strutted their stuff in the Groundlings' stage on Melrose Avenue is long: Kathy Griffin, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Julia Sweenie, Maya Rudolph, Lisa Kudrow, and even Paul Reubens, who created his Pee-wee Herman character as a Groundling.

The Upright Citizens Brigade, originally from Chicago and now fully bicoastal with theaters in Los Angeles and New York, performs locally for the first time at the Improv Festival. Just the Funny, in the middle of a busy local season that continues without missing a beat after the festival, offers three shows: revivals of the local hits The Big Show and Duocity, plus the premiere of the sonic improvised spectacular 4 Track. What else to expect? Among others, there is what sounds like a twisted and very funny Canadian show called Inside the Out-of-Work Actors Studio. Then there is the Miami premiere of Personal Assistant, Celisa Grayer's saga about one woman's search for identity, self-worth, and balls.

There's a movie too: a mockumentary called Yes And, from Jack Reda, founder of Washington's DCUP (District of Columbia Unscripted Players). That might sound risky — the last comedy troupe to make the national rounds, Capitol Steps, was about as funny as C-SPAN with a piano. Still, "It's just like This Is Spinal Tap — awesome even for people who don't know all the conventions of improv.

"It's hysterical," Christopher swears.