Hugs!

Hugs!

Teddy Valentine: What makes a sketch comedian? No shame.

Barb Mitchell: Big hairy balls.

Dan Perry- Uhhhhhhhhhhh. A lot of drugs and booksmarts.

Devon Dubnyk (again): Childhood trauma and a denial thereof.

And… end scene… Catch y’all at the show (or later… you know, if you can’t make it… I mean, you should try to make it, but if you don’t, that’s cool… Not “cool” cool, but just okay… Like, we understand and stuff…) … Anyway…

HUGS!

HUGS!

THREE THUMBS UP! WHY? ‘CAUSE WE’RE ABOUT TO REVEAL THE TOP-SECRET CAST FOR OUR NEXT SHOW, HAPPY ENDINGS! WHY SUCH LARGE COMIC SANS? BECAUSE THE CAST FOR HAPPY ENDINGS BE CUH-CUH-CRAZY! CHECK IT! THERE’S 8 PEOPLE IN THIS SHOW! EIGHT! HUIT! OCHO! BLAM! AND THIS OCTET OF PERFORMERS IS A TRULY AWE-INSPIRING GROUP OF VAGABONDS AND VIXENS, READY TO BLOW YOUR MIND IN OUR SEASON FINALE (APRIL 25-28)… WHO ARE THESE REBELS, THESE COMEDY NINJAS? WELL, WE’VE GOT:

JUSTIN MICHAEL CARRIERE*

DAN PERRY

BARB MITCHELL*

AMOS ALTMAN

TEDDY VALENTINE

CHARLOTTE JOY

PAT QUINN

AND INTRODUCING DEVON DUBNYK

*appearing with the permission of Canadian Actors’ Equity Association

The performing arts, as a career, can occasionally be lucrative; but, generally speaking, not as a sketch comedian… Sketch comedy can lead to television or film or other successes, I suppose, but live sketch itself is not often mentioned as a primary source of income… and most definitely not for a sketch comedian in Calgary (legend has it that half of the Kids in the Hall -before they were Kids in the Hall- left Calgary to pursue further success elsewhere… And today, our own Gavin Williams has joined them… traveling… elsewhere…) … So we obviously don’t do “this” for money, fame, or power… Though the endgame seems to be in the form of an oft-posed question: “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could quit our day jobs and do this all the time?”… Yes… So I guess money will have to eventually be a major part in the process… Perhaps fame and power, too… But since the money/fame/power trifecta don’t fit into the equation just yet, and our day-jobs remain, that must means we want to do sketch comedy… We want to make creating and/or performing sketch, and other new work, our job… Because we must think we’re good at it and have few other marketable skills to offer the world… And we must enjoy doing it… “It” being developing new work, performing it, and getting a live response… We must actually love it, otherwise, we wouldn’t be as committed to continuing it… Originally, back in ’06, it was just a bunch of friends putting on a show… There was no future to it; just a one-off to keep the creative juices flowing after university… Then it evolved into something… A possible future… The shows started getting better, we became more confident, and we had a direction… Up, I guess… And we keep trying to head in that direction… the processes have changed to meet our previous goals (“hey, let’s sell out 1 night of a 4 night run”), and they will continue to change to meet our future goals (“hey, let’s be in the next Vin Diesel movie”)… So, I guess the reason we do it is we love it… Cliche? Yes… But then, I thought, why do we think we’re good at it? You can love something and just be terrible at it… A lot of people love sex without knowing that they are terrible at it, so why should performing be any different? Especially sketch comedy which, when done badly, can be excruciating… So how do we know we’re good at it? We usually go with audience response, which has so far validated our claim of supposed excellence… People even occasionally love us… And the people who seem to absolutely hate us seem to be a non-vocal minority, and voice their displeasure by not seeing the show… Which, you would think, puts the majority of Calgary in that so-called minority, since most of Calgary hasn’t seen the show… But most of Calgary has NEVER seen the show, so they don’t count… We’re talking about one-time guests who adamantly oppose good times/laughter through ribald humour… The rest of Calgary can make that decision once they actually see the show (next show is on April 25-28!)… Which means we should probably start marketing the heck out of it (Hey! Come to the show everyone! And/or tell your friends!)… Anyway, we trust our audience in their assertion that we’re good at this sketch comedy thing, and I think I’ve established our love for sketch… So then, a third question arises… What do the performers themselves thinks makes a good sketch comedian? That’s a good question…

See… That Amos went on forever… Me, the Mongoose, I prefer shorter responses, so I asked members of the LLBS that very question Amos ended with in part one of what will surely be a continuing series, What Makes A Good Sketch Comedian:

Amos Altman: Fearlessness. And the intelligence to know why you think something works comically, so you can pursue it even though it’s incredibly stupid.

Shannon Hagel- Tits.

Justin Michael Carriere- I don’t fuckin’ know. (note: The Mongoose has to wonder, if JMC doesn’t know, does that make him a terrible sketch comedian? Or a genius sketch comedian?)

Pat Quinn- The ability to make faces. Funny ones.

Devon Dubnyk- I think you have to be a good writer… Have a solid understanding of timing… And an understanding of genre, character, and their context within a sketch… Maybe not a good writer, if you don’t know how to write… But whether you write or not you need to understand the “funny” in any situation; especially the absurd…

… Wow, that Devon’s jibber-jabber is nearly as epic as Amos’… Oh, and for those of you who don’t know, Devon Dubnyk is making his LLBS debut in Happy Endings… From April 25-28… So… Be there… Or Devon will get angry… And you won’t like him when he’s angry… Mongoose out!

HUGS!

HUGS

Hugs!

HUGS!

HUGS!