Returning once more to their New York City home at Off-Off-Broadway’s Trilogy Theatre, Freestyle Repertory Theatre will offer "TheatreSports" and "The News" as their improv evenings. "Theatresports," the Freestyle's signature show, runs Thursday through Saturdays, March 30-April 15. Via a set of competitive improv games, the company divides into two teams who make up stories, songs, poems and plays on the audience's suggestions. Selected judges and the audience choose who will be the evening's champion. Laura Livingston directs.

April 20-May 6 brings “The News,” an off-beat debate on current events, seemingly evolved from Freestyle Rep’s fall presentation of “Olde & News,” which also mixed Shakespearean-style comedy into its modern themes.

According to a press rep, cast members in Freestyle Rep currently include Laura Livingston, Michael Durkin, Trevor Davis, Paula Boyajian, Kelly McCaffery, Adam Nowak and Anthony Veneziale.

Unlike Chicago, where improv troupes are something of a local industry, New York offers few long-standing improvisatory companies, the other exception being the ironically-titled, Chicago City Limits. Freestyle Rep, now under the artistic direction of Laura Livingston, has been presenting a season of improv since 1982.

Reservations for Freestyle Rep at the Trilogy Theatre, 341 West 44th Street, can be made by calling (212) 642-8202.

-- By David Lefkowitz