Photo: Keith Huang

DOUBLE WIN! Improv duo (Bradford Jordan and Lucas Kavner) held tightly to their SketchProv crowns, topping (Jon Braylock and Ramy Youssef) to win SketchProv 2010. But pay attention to the boys of Inside Joke Films. They made an earnest attempt, but given how young these performers are, the horizon could not be more wide open. Nevertheless, after watching three 12-minute sets of improv and sketch comedy, the judges (casting agent Jodi Collins, comedian Tom Shillue and Maureen Taran, vicepresident of original programing for Epix) went with last year's favorites. Read The PIT's .

The PIT's 4th annual SketchProv tournament kicks off . Sketch and improv teams will vie not only for a $2,500 prize purse, but also a considerable boost to their comedy careers.

Lucas Kavner, one half of last year's winner , said: "We got a few meetings with casting people after the tournament, but more importantly, Swords was just starting out as a group at the time and it really inspired us to keep going." He added: "The final round proved to be really amazing for us -- having 10 minutes to come up with a basic structure based on one idea and then improvising around it. That was some of the most fun I had on stage last year."

What is SketchProv?
Improv teams and sketch teams will compete in rounds of competition that will challenge them at the craft they know best. For groups that make it past round one, improv teams will do improv AND sketch, sketch teams will do sketch AND improv. Teams that advance to the finals will try their hand at SketchProv, using the Second City routine called "The Pad."

Here's a quick guide to some of the hot tournament match-ups next week (full disclosure: I will be competing in this tournament with improv team Borealis):

SUN, SEPT 19 @ 5PM (prelim sketch round)
vs. : The 2008 SketchProv winners Ao2 take on Peoples Sketch Association. Two years later, and Ao2 are still reaping tournament success, having recently performed at the Out of Bounds Festival in Austin, Texas, and soon heading westwardly for Seattle SketchFest. But expect PSA to trot out some smart, edgy comedy; last year they did this restaurant scene that had a fishbowl drink and Mexican sombreros. Then a remote-control car did a walk-on. It was tits.

SUN, SEPT 19 @ 8PM (prelim improv round)
vs. : These two improv duos from The PIT and Magnet theaters, respectively, are sure to bring their A-games. Jen+Steve have home-court advantage, but We're Matt Weir have identical-name advantage. Which is pretty g.d. incredible.

MON, SEPT 20 @ 10PM (prelim improv round)
vs. : Improv talk-of-the-town Doppelganger have this magical thing they do in scenes where one player will hang a sharp turn and the other two will just lean into that shit so hard they Tokyo Drift -- it's sick. Meanwhile, Dave & Ethan share their own special dynamic that sometimes results in Dave making out with Kiwi fruit. But expect these guys to dig deep for the truth in their scenes; I fear someday they'll get trapped like those Pennsylvania coal miners. Only it'll be an awesome tragedy.

--SketchProv runs all week at The Peoples Improv Theater from SUN, SEPT 19, to SAT, SEPT 25. Buy advance tickets for the final round or a festival pass