The program, titled "The Best of 'The Backdoor' and 'The Rahn and Neil Show'," will begin at 8 p.m. in the Screening Room, Room 112, in the Center for the Arts on the UB North Campus. It is free of charge and open to the public.

The screening will feature selected comedy sketches and other provocative video pieces dealing with a range of relevant issues from the two programs.

"The Rahn and Neil Show" was inaugurated in the spring of 1995 by Neil Katcher and Rahn D'Agostino, both then sophomores in the UB media study department.

Their original goal was to produce sketch comedy that students and faculty would appreciate and enjoy. The comedy material developed was a mixture of abstract and conceptual humor colored by teen angst. The four-member cast included D'Agostino, Katcher, Scott Lifton and Neil Driscoll. They wrote, directed, produced, edited and acted all the sketches.

In the fall of 1994, D'Agostino left UB and took up studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The show has continued since then with a new name, "The Backdoor." The show airs every Sunday and Monday at 10:30 p.m. on Campus Cable Channel 13.

"The Backdoor," however, is more than a continuation of the earlier show, Katcher says. "Cast members grew creatively and intellectually and so did the material. Although the show is considered by many of its viewers as a sketch-comedy program, the cast has often explored serious and personal issues in what has turned out to be some of their best work," he says.

In addition to Katcher, Lifton and Driscoll, the show's cast also included Brian Steinberg, Mikey Jackson, Jon Nissenbaum and Michelle McConville.

Katcher said that by compiling the best of the two shows and presenting the material to students, faculty, staff and the general public, he hopes to communicate the purpose of campus-produced television programming and encourage more segments of the campus community to produce video work to entertain and inform their peers.

For further information, contact Katcher at 645-4819.