Williesha Lakin

As subway passengers and Union Park visitors pass by on a busy New York City street, Charlie Todd is making secret hand signals.

Above him, about 70 shadowy figures, one by one, face the street behind windows in a multi-story building housing several stores. At the same time, they begin jumping jacks.

As the antics continue, and pranksters hold up four-foot tall letters that spell "Look Up More," Todd, improv comedian and public prankster, gauges the growing crowd's reaction and snaps a few photos. Some stare up in brief bewilderment, and most are smiling.

"It was kind of exciting," said the 26-year-old Columbia native about this 15-minute staging he pulled a couple of weeks ago. "This was kind of the theme: stop looking at the ground, look around them."

This is one example of the stunts Todd creates as part of Improv Everywhere (www.improveverywhere.com). He recruits fellow actors from the Upright Citizens' Brigade, where he took classes and is now a teacher.

"It's a great network of talented people," he said. They have the ability to "think on your feet, and you have to keep straight face."

The comedian has already been featured in the New York Times for sending a well-dressed bathroom attendant, equipped with toiletries, into a McDonald's restroom.

His first prank wasn't quite as complicated. In fact, it was practically an accident.

He was out to dinner with friends a few years ago, when someone stopped him. They thought he was Ben Folds from the band Ben Folds Five. So for the rest of the night, he went along with everyone's assumptions - grinning for pictures, signing autographs, snagging some potential dates. And it got him free drinks all night.

"It was just this crazy experience," he said. After all, like most theatre majors, he was prepared to wait for the right opportunities. Instead, his improv life is about "creating your own entertainment, creating your own fun."

At the moment, he keeps a day job to pay the bills. But he could be on his way to creating a new kind of prank TV show. He's currently pitching the idea to L.A. producers, possibly taking his urban pranks nationwide.

And unlike the practical joke shows most people today are familiar with, "I try to do things that are uplifting and positive, making someone’s day or giving someone a story to tell. (My pranks are) amazing or incredible rather than something that's embarassing or humiliating or cruel."

Such large-scale, non-invasive pranks such as "Look Up More" probably wouldn't work in his hometown, where he attended Hammond School. In the middle of a prank, someone could recognize Todd from the street.

Besides the anonymity he can attain in a big city, New York provides unique challenges for big and small pranks.

"(In New York) people are so focused on getting things done, and things are definitely a lot more serious here and a little less friendly," he said.

"New Yorkers are so jaded. There's an amazing story on every block at every given moment," he said. He hopes his pranks help Big Apple residents to "stop and break their routine."

This lifelong prankster planned a stunt for today, as well as another in May. Much like his most recent prank, he wants to "try to get New Yorkers to slow down a bit and look up and engage themselves with people around them."