For years, entertainment acts have been raising money for charitable events.

Bono organized Live 8, Robin Williams had Comic Relief, and now Penn State has Thon Festival, a series of theatrical performances to benefit the Interfraternity Council/Panhellenic Dance Marathon (Thon).

After forming a Thon team last year, students in the School of Theatre decided they wanted to take their fundraising efforts further and do something in their field to raise money, Donathin Frye (senior-theatre), founder of the festival, said.

"It helps us raise more money than canning and it offers performance opportunities for the undergrads," Frye said.

For its first year, Thon Festival includes the play Invisible Man, directed by Frye, and a new performance every night of the festival from the Thon Improv Troupe.

Frye figured the audience for the festival would differ from his usual late-night crowd at Penn State's Outlaws Theatre shows and factored this into choosing Invisible Man for the festival.

"Usually we do edgier things but because of Thon, we had to pick something more PG-13 but still potent," Frye said. "I beat my head into the wall while pondering the dozens of possible plays that could be performed. In the end, I chose a very new, and largely obscure play, Invisible Man."

The play is about a mute homeless veteran who returns from Iraq and finds himself panhandling in the New York City Subway. In the course of one day, he comes across many different characters, all of which are affected after their meetings with this nameless man.

"[The show is a] wonderful blend of quirky humor with powerful, visceral scenes. Just as the audience begins to get used to the pace of one scene, the next scene completely changes pace -- keeping the one-act play quick and engaging," Frye said.

Although the play does not directly deal with cancer, Frye still feels the message will resonate with audiences.

"It is the story of a man who, without uttering a single word, shows us that the greatest heroes are sometimes those who merely are courageous enough to overcome the scariest and most difficult of personal obstacles," he said.

For those looking for lighter fare, the Thon Improv Troupe will be making its stage debut as part of the festival. Originally scheduled as just an opening act for Invisible Man, the troupe got its own show, troupe member, Mark Schroeder (sophomore-theatre) said.

"What most people are familiar with is short form improvisation like Whose Line is it Anyway?, but we work with only one suggestion from the audience and do our own transitions," he said.

As a theatre major, Schroeder likes to test the fine line between improv and acting.

"I think improv is a very true form of performance," he said. "It's the purest form of acting, there's no safety nets and there's a lot of traps you can fall into."

Before there were official improv groups like Full Ammo on campus, transfer student Ryan Nelson came to Penn State from Point Park College in Pittsburgh and was surprised that no one was doing improv.

Before coming to State College, Nelson would commute every week to New York City to train and perform with a premiere comedy troupe, the Upright Citizens Brigade. Then Nelson formed his own troupe with Robin Wachsberger (senior-theatre) during fall of last year.

With about six members, the troupe spent a lot of time trying out different forms of improv.

"We've basically been figuring out what our strengths are and letting that dictate our performance," Wachsberger said.

Nelson and Wachsberger agree that it's a longtime coming for the group to have a live show.

"It's just about making relationships with the people on stage, but when you connect it click and I think the audience can really connect with that," Nelson said.