Six students joined on stage Thursday evening to start a four-day run of “The Complete History of America (abridged)” at Rice Auditorium.

The production takes a satirical route to what will make you laugh, Associate Professor of Theater Tom Heiman said.

“It’s got a lot of political humor in it, and it’s a good year for that,” he said.

The show takes significant events in America’s history and turns them into something that’s not exactly true.

“They’ll start off with an actual fact and then by the time they’re done talking, you’re going ‘wait a minute,'” Heiman said. “You’ll learn something and you’ll walk away laughing. And hopefully, you’ll be able to figure out what was actual history and what was embellishment. I mean the guys in the bunkers in World War I weren’t carrying super soakers, but that’s what our guys do.”

Heiman chose the show because it made him laugh, but it was originally only written for three people. He figured he would be able to find more cast members, and he did. But each had to bring a certain element to the show.

“One of the things that needed to happen for this show was that they needed to be crisp,” Heiman said. “There’s a lot of information, they stand and talk to the audience and give a lot of information, so I needed crisp people; and they seemed to be the guys who could do that well.”

One of those guys turned out to be sophomore Philip Schiffelbein, who plays a variety of roles including himself. He said the show is fun to work because it is different from what the department has done in the past.

“This show is a blast to work on. It’s kind of all over the place, both historically and physically; there’s a lot of running on and off the stage,” Schiffelbein said. “It’s been a lot of work to try and nail down, like to get the jokes and the timing right with all of the technical stuff, but it’s been a lot of fun.”

Audience participation is carried throughout, which is something junior Justin Whittaker said he enjoys about being part of the production.

“I’m definitely excited. Plays like this are always a lot of fun because there’s a lot of audience participation and opportunities,” Whittaker said. “You’re talking to them the whole time and there’s a lot of yourself on stage, just goofing around. But, obviously there’s structure, too.”

Portraying one’s self on stage is also one of the aspects that’s raising Whittaker’s anxiety.

“It’s more nerve-racking in the fact that it’s us. It’s us on stage,” he said. “We play a little bit different versions of ourselves, but what the audience sees is you, so if they don’t like it, then it’s kind of like they don’t like you.”

“The Complete History of America (abridged)” runs again at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and will have a 2 p.m. matinée on Sunday.