Improv Jones will be appearing at the Providence Improv Fest.

Once again, for the sixth consecutive year, preparations haven’t been made. Performers haven’t rehearsed. Yet the shows will go on.

The Providence Improv Festival returns. It’s Thursday through Sunday at three downtown venues involving two dozen groups.

Think comically. Laugh locally. That’s this year’s theme, as the festival returns to its roots.

“This year, because the economy is down, we thought it would be good to get back to the spirit of that first year,” says Mauro Hantman, the festival’s director.

In that first year, 2004, the festival featured three local improv groups: Improv Jones, Speed of Thought Players and Unexpected Company. Since then local performers have always been a part of the festival, but not all of the festival.

“Over the years the festival expanded. We added national and international groups, and it got really big, which was great.”

Last year the festival had 40 performance groups, 15 of which were local. Given the cost of bringing in outside groups, and given the growth of local groups, the festival resets its focus.

“Let’s do for New England what we did for Providence,” Hantman says.

The Providence Improv Festival is the biggest festival of its kind in New England, according to Hantman. And this year it will be big on New England improv groups: 24 of them, half from Rhode Island (including the three original participants), and four of six New England states represented.

“The groups have just been proliferating. Improv is fun.”

Improv is unscripted, stream-of-consciousness, free-association, make-it-up-as-you-go theater, which tends toward the ridiculous. There’s long-form and short-form storytelling, and all kinds of improv games, as popularized on the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway?

“There is definitely balance in the festival.”

One unusual part of the festival is Bring Your Own Improv. BYOI, which is based in Providence, not only welcomes audience input, which is a mainstay in improv, it welcomes audience members as improv performers.

“It is risky,” says Daniel Lee White, performer/producer with BYOI. “But our troupe members have dropped their egos to get up there and help people out. When the volunteer gets up there, we’ve set everything up so we essentially hand them the joke. People are generally good at picking it up.”

The type of improv BYOI performs is not long-form storytelling, which would be demanding to ask of a novice. Most often the troupe performs improvisational games.

“Sometimes people get up there and freeze on you. Our performers recognize when someone is done. They’re ready to jump into the scene.”

That’s the way improv works. One performer makes a contribution. And when others feel that person’s contribution is declining, they’ll take the lead and offer a new energy and direction to a skit. While improv is unscripted it’s not unstructured.

“There’s a whole book of rules,” White says.

Before each BYOI show, the company shares an improv rule with its audience: listen carefully to the other performers; don’t turn your back on the audience; don’t whisper, etc.

The big improv rule is “Never say no,” White says. “In improv, we always say yes.”

One performer presents an outlandish idea. Another performer acknowledges and accepts the idea, and then adds to it. That’s what drives improv, which varies widely. And the best of the bunch at the festival will perform Sunday.

“This year the whole festival will be a competition,” Hantman says.

After each performance, audiences will rate the performers. At the end, the six groups with the highest scoring average will compete on Sunday for the title of best in New England.

The Providence Improv Festival is at Perishable Theatre, 95 Empire St., Local 121, 121 Washington St., and AS220, 115 Empire St. Shows are Thursday at 7, 8 and 9 p.m.; Friday at 8, 10 and midnight; Saturday at 7, 8, 10 and midnight; and Sunday at 3, 7, 8 and 9 p.m. Tickets are $10 per show, $15 for a day’s worth of shows, and $40 for all the festival’s shows. For more, visit on the Web at providenceimprovfest.com.

brourke@projo.com