This upcoming weekend marks the end of the 2007 San Francisco SketchFest and two weeks ago closed the Chicago fest. Together these twin bottles of bubbly smashed across the bow of the good ship SketchFest, christening the eighth year of the circuit.
As you can tell by the sidebar, the sketch world has grown a lot since the original one-night, eight-minutes-per-act SketchFest one wet Seattle night in 1999.
Well, we here at SketchFest Seattle HQ crunched a few numbers and, by our calculations, the group that’s attended the most fests is L.A.’s TROOP!
We caught up with (from left to right) Britt Erickson, Kevin Chesley, Steve Sabellico, Bryan Shukoff, Brent Simons, and Jay Dugre to ask them about touring, the ever-expanding sketch community and about the future of this sketch comedy warhorse.
SketchFest: Let’s begin with the predictable: When/how/where did you form?
STEVE: We all attended Emerson College in Boston. I had been one of the re-founders of the Emerson Comedy Workshop which was the comedy group Denis Leary had formed with Eddie Brill. There was still money in the budget for the group, but the group had dissolved. So myself and 4 other students applied for the money, got it and we were off holding auditions. We held auditions for the newly formed ECW in 1994 and we took on Britt and Bryan. Then the 2nd semester we took a young man named Kevin Chesley.
KEVIN: Emerson College is the best sketch comedy college. And I’m pretty sure they have no idea. If the higher-ups over there started realizing that…it might ruin it. Someday that will be something Emerson is lauded for. But not yet…
STEVE: The other competing comedy group on campus was the Swolen Monkey Showcase which had both Brent and Jay. We had a friendly rivalry on campus, would go to each others shows and appear in each others videos.
JAY: We would raid their rehearsals and have pillow fights that traveled up all five stories of the Emerson Student Union.
STEVE: One by one we graduated and moved out to Los Angeles–because that’s what you do when you want to be in the entertainment industry.
JAY: When I moved to Los Angeles, I had no idea that any of these five characters would be coming out west as well. The five of them started a group. Kevin said “You want to come to a meeting?” So I did. And at that meeting, we found out we had a show.
BRITT: I moved to LA in time to perform in Troop!’s 2nd show. It was magical, it was illuminating and it was under a Thai food restaurant. One reviewer described the performance as “more promising than a Jim Jones’ White Night!”
SF: So how many Sketchfests have you been to?
BRYAN: I think I can answer that. Seattle was our first, and we hit that one five times, Chicago three times, NYC twice, Portland three times, DC once, when we got up to San Fran that was be our third time there. We got to do Vancouver once and we’ll be going up to Bellingham for our very first time in March. That’s…. nineteen. Whoa, nineteen!?!? The amount of SketchFests we’ve been to is already in COLLEGE!! The amount of SketchFests we’ve been to could almost play a softball game!
KEVIN: No way! Our SketchFests are at least in their twenties! If you count the LA Fest Of Sketch…we’ve done that…twice now? Maybe three…it’s our hometown but it still counts. Oh! And CIF – the Chicago Improv Festival. CIF was fun but Sketch is kind of the red-headed step nephew there.
BRITT: In the twenties??
BRYAN: I believe if we had not gone to those sketchfests we would all have swimming pools and mansions by now. But we wouldn’t trade it for the world, because we have had an unbelievably great time at every one.
JAY: I have spent upwards of $75,000 going on the 20+ trips and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend that money.
SF: What differences/similarities do you see in each region’s SketchFest? Have you noticed differences in sense of humor?
JAY: I think that there is a definite difference in the senses of humor in the general population of the different cities in general but it seems that the sketch troupes themselves all share a common mind. I have never had a problem getting Dusty Warren‘s (Seattle) humor or Geoff Haggarty‘s (New York). Everyone seems to be on the same page.
SF: How has the SketchFest circuit/community changed since you started attending?
STEVE: When we started attending festivals there was only one SketchFest: Seattle. Within five years there are now sketch festivals in Bellingham, LA, San Fran, Portland, NYC, Vancouver, etc., etc. The community that has sprung up around these fests is incredible. We’ve met fantastic writers and performers who we keep running into at fest after fest and now they’re old friends.
JAY: I remember thinking that we were part of a nice little underground sketch community and before I knew it I turned around and there were hundreds of other groups and tens of other festivals and we were in the middle of a sketch revolution.
SF: How do you think you’ve managed to hang in there so long when so many past SketchFest troupes have either broken up or refuse to continue touring due to the expense?
STEVE: We’re great friends. We’ve known each other since college and I cant’ say this without giving away our ages – that’s over ten years. Eight years as TROOP! These guys are my brothers and sister. Do we get in fights? Sure. As any brother or sister would. But in the end we trust each other. “I’m telling you if you wait a beat right there you’ll get a huge laugh.” “Kevin, you can NOT have a skateboard dropped on your face from eight feet in the air.”
JAY: For me, there is no expense great enough to make me stop. I am the poorest one in the group and somehow I’ve managed to make it to every out of town show we’ve done. If there’s a will (an idiot who wants to perform comedy in another city for his own financial loss) there’s a way (that idiot doesn’t get to have brakes on his car). What I love is that even if we can’t all go, we still show up to these fests. We’ve been 3 strong at a few and that’s as low as I’d like to go but I remember one trip we talked about making a 2-man show.
SF: As a lot of groups mature, they seem to shift focus and develop some sort of theme or philosophy. Yet after eight years, TROOP! seems committed to the traditional sketch form. Has there ever been the temptation to experiment with themes or, for lack of a better term, a shtick?
BRENT: Our goal has always been to make TROOP! shows more of an experience than an experiment. The sketch comedy we liked growing up didn’t have a shtick. It just surprised people – Kids in the Hall, Monty Python. Each show was different but similar in a way you couldn’t quite put your finger on. You didn’t know what to expect, and that’s why you kept coming back to it.
KEVIN: I respect when other groups do theme shows a lot – usually – but I really love the old-school sketch format. I like a totally different bit and completely separate set of characters every five minutes. I love the ability to sculpt and rearrange our show as we like. At the San Fran SketchFest, we were asked to do two sets – one 45 min. and the other 20. That’s not a problem because our show is…we’ve always batted around the world “modular.” I like that.
SF: What is one of your favorite on or off stage moments from touring?
STEVE: Kevin, was the first Seattle the “Muppet Movie” moment or was that another?
KEVIN: What is “The Muppet Movie” story? I’m delighted and forgetful and intrigued.
STEVE: We were returning to the Seattle SketchFest for the 2nd year. We built our show and it was a mix of some wackier/off-beat stuff, and most was new material. So we did the show and it went “eh.” Jokes fell flat. Audience members came up to us after the show and said, “Hey I saw you guys last year and brought friends because your show was so great. You guys didn’t do anything from last year. Do you ever reminisce about that other material and want to bring it back?”
JAY: He actually said, “Man, I saw you guys last year! You were great! What happened? Do you ever think about the good old days?” That quote will forever be burned into my brain.
STEVE: So anyway the next morning we all sort of went our separate ways in the city and meandered around and got introspective. Much like the Muppets in the Muppet Movie. And then we came back to our hotel room and talked about what didn’t work and why. We rehearsed again that day. And then we did our 2nd show that night and killed. So since then we’ve always referred to that as “The Muppet Movie” moment.
KEVIN: I don’t mean to be a dick…but when does that happen in “The Muppet Movie?” Man, am I a dick.
SF: TROOP! is on this year’s small-but-tight-knit roster for Bellingham’s “Sketchingham.” What do you anticipate from this latest addition to the sketch world?
STEVE: I have no idea what to expect. We’ve heard good things about the fest. We like the Cody Rivers Show guys. We’re going to head up there and see what happens.
JAY: I think these guys are funny, smart and incredibly creative. I can’t wait to go and see what their fest is like. It should be an absolute blast.
SF: Any other touring plans for 2007?
JAY: Sure! Where should we go?
STEVE: Well the first month of the year isn’t even over and already our calendar is starting to book up. We’ve submitted to the NYC SketchFest again because we love getting out to NY… we’re doing a showcase for the Montreal Comedy Fest in a couple weeks… we’ve got a show here in LA in the Comedy Cocktail show at The Highlands in a week. And that’s it for now… but like I said: it’s only the 4th week of January.
SF: Doesn’t that kind of schedule wear you down?
STEVE: As I sit here now, I’m running on four hours sleep because we did a show last night in the San Francisco SketchFest, then drove the six hours back that night-into-morning so we could go to our day jobs. I’m sitting in a cubicle right now thinking “Wow… I was making 250 strangers laugh just last night… and here I am sitting in a cubicle physically exhausted.” Then that little smile spreads across your face as you think about that moment and that, THAT smile, is why we keep doing it.
KEVIN: I refer to the smile Steve is talking about at work the next morning as “Fight Club Day.” That’s when I’m covered with the blood of sleepless nights, new groups I’ve met… but I’m at work twelve hours later. I both love and hate the following scene which never fails to occur at work the next day:
The Boss: Hey, so how was New York City?
TROOP! Agent X: Awesome.
The Boss: Hey, did you get a chance to see the Statue of Liberty while you were out there?
TROOP! Agent X: Nope. I had to build a Twinkie suit on the fly. I saw Central Park though! We needed a Soothsayer stick!
The Boss: A what?
TROOP! Agent X: A…um…no, but I’ve been out to Ellis Island before.
The Boss: Neat, huh!?! She’s smaller than you’d think!
TROOP! Agent X: She suuuuuure is.
We’re like the Edward Nortons of comedy.
