Round-Up features comedy stars

Jay Pharoah and Nicole Byer will be headlining USF’s Round-Up comedy show in the USF Sun Dome. SPECIAL TO THE ORACLE

USF’s Week of Welcome (WOW) will wrap up with USF’s annual Round-Up comedy show, a set of stand-up comedy routines starring Jay Pharoah from “SNL” and Nicole Byer from “Girl Code.” 

Doors open at 9 p.m. Friday at the USF Sun Dome, and the event is free for all students with a USF ID.

Richard Scibetti, coordinator for USF’s Center for Student Involvement, said Byer will perform first, followed by Pharoah, and expects the event to end around 11:30 p.m.

Pharoah, 27, has been a part of the “SNL” team since September 2010 and has being performing stand-up comedy shows since he was 15, according to a Washington Post article. He was also cast in the 2014 comedy “Ride Along.”

Other than starring on the MTV show “Girl Code,” Byer has also appeared on “30 Rock” and “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”

To bring the comedians to campus, Scibetti said Pharoah and Byer’s appearance Friday is allocated from student Activity and Service fees — $23,000 and $10,000, respectively.

“That (cost) is all-inclusive of ground transportation, travel and hotel (fees). We pay them one flat rate, and they handle everything else,” he said. “There are no other fees for them outside of that.”

Scibetti said he expects 2,000 to 3,000 students to attend the show — a larger audience than last year’s Round-Up comedy show, which starred comedian Chris D’Elia from the NBC sitcoms “Whitney” and “Undateable.” 

“With Jay Pharoah and Nicole Byer both being bigger names in the comedy world than Chris D’Elia, I could imagine a slightly bigger audience this year,” he said.

Scibetti said the biggest difference between this year’s show and last year’s is the omission of a sports pep rally before the comedy routines, as he said USF’s football pep rally, The Huddle, will begin Friday at 7 p.m.

While the comedy show marks the end of WOW, USF students can still participate in university events during USF’s First Fifty Days.