State Of The American Dream In The 21st Century

Sketchy Advice: a comedy writing column from the UCB. Established comedy writers from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre & UCB Comedy offer advice on being creative, the writing process, and adding to a writer’s room.

Mark Rennie is a California native based in Los Angeles.  He’s currently writing on the Maude team Nephew. He also writes a recurring variety show called “Those Magnificent Moms” as well as his sketch show “Tales from the Country Club.” He does improv now and then but not a lot. For show info and late night tweets about Anne Heche follow him on twitter at twitter.com/markrennie.

Finding Your Voice

If you’re reading this chances are that you’re a student studying sketch comedy or you’re my mother. When you tell people you’re a writer you often hear, “I could never do that!” and “Okay, but what’s your back-up plan?” You’ll also hear about the importance of finding your voice. Note that you don’t create your voice, rather, it’s something you find. Your voice is already inside you, like Dorothy’s way home to Kansas, or a tape worm.

So how do you find your voice?

Imagine you’re in the audience at Maude night. The lights go down. The show’s moments away from starting. Now stop and think, what do you want to see happen on that stage? What would delight you? Do you want to see a talk show parody where the hosts are slowly catching on fire? A sassy monologue by John Wilkes Booth? Write that sketch. Don’t worry about it being only funny to you (as those examples were to me). Write what you want to see on that stage and don’t censor yourself.

Don’t worry if it’s different that other stuff that’s playing at UCB. It should be different, because you are different. Audiences want to see unique voices on that stage and they won’t get that unless you write the sketches that you are dying to see. To paraphrase Gandhi, “Be the ‘House of Cards’ parody sketch you want to see in the world.”

So let’s say you’ve spent a year or so doing just that. You’ve figured out your strengths as a writer and have banked a handful of great sketches that highlight the wonderful creature you. What’s next?

Collaborate.

Doesn’t this seem contradictory to what I just said? Isn’t that annoying? Well it’s not! The fact is you’re going to spend most of your writing career writing for other people, unless you’re some sort of uniquely talented writer AND performer, which you probably aren’t. So write for people and write with people! Do it now! Still bring YOU to it, that’s who people want to collaborate with after all.

I’ve gotten some of my favorite sketches out of meeting with an actor and finding out what they want to do. What kind of characters do they want to play? Are there genres they’re dying to dip their toes into?

One sketch, “Actress Memoir,” came from a lovely Chinese food dinner I had with then “Nephew” actor Jeff Hiller. Over a dinner of aromatic shrimp and plenty of Mai Tais we came up with a long list of possible characters for him to play. He said that he’d love to play a “Soap Opera Diva.” Jeff Hiller wants to play a diva?! Knock me over with a feather! But I agreed that was a fun world to play in. Here’s that sketch:

The first draft of this sketch was pretty bad, the game was all about her “excitement-based vomiting.” But Nephew’s director Jon Gabrus saved it and helped craft it into the less dumb sketch. Which leads me to my next point.

Take the note and kill your darlings.

Did I love “excitement-based vomiting” as a game? No. Not at all. No one did when we read the first draft at our writers’ meeting. Gabrus and the other writers gave me notes about what was working in the sketch so I focused on that in the re-writes and it eventually became a fun sketch that Hiller destroyed. Everybody won!

If your first draft doesn’t land and someone in the room comes up with a funnier game or way to play it, don’t be bashful, take their idea! They’ll be flattered and you’ll get all the credit in the end. Sweet, delicious credit!

If there’s a joke you love and no one is laughing at it, that means it’s probably not a funny joke. Sure it’s funny in your head, but no one else is living in your head. So cut it, every sketch is too long any way.

But, you cry, “What about my voice?! My vision shan’t be compromised!” Here’s the hard truth, your voice and vision are only interesting to you. No one else cares. If you’re writing comedy and the jokes aren’t landing, that means the jokes are broken, so get rid of them. And once your tightly-written sketch is performed and universally adored, you won’t miss those old jokes that no one ever liked any way.

The Button.

I’m terrible at finding endings to sketches that don’t end with someone dying. I also don’t know how to end this essay, so I’m going to take my own advice and end with some quick final thoughts because if I were reading a sketch advice essay, I’d love to see some quick final thoughts.

Watch documentaries.

Watch garbage too, like the ABC Family movie “Cyberbully.”  

Support your friends.

Take the note!

Chances are you never need to use the word “just.” Delete it if you can.

Don’t be too precious with your work.

Write your pilot! Do it now!

If you’re not having fun, why are you doing this?

Stop printing out title pages.

Work hard.

Push yourself to try new things. I’m coming around to mushrooms!

If your sketch doesn’t make you laugh, re-write it. What about the idea is funny to you?

Seriously, write your pilot! Oh you did already? Then write another one, Ms. Oh-So-Accomplished!

Thanks Mark! Catch more Sketchy Advice right here on the UCB Blog and check out new videos every weekday at youtube.com/UCBcomedy and live shows at ucbtheatre.com!

Check out some more of Mark’s videos:

TONIGHT on @atmidnightcc it’s @TrumpvsBernie! 11:59:59pm on Comedy Central!

More bug news soon, in my next gram in fact!

I’ve had luck lately setting up exercises like this.

Two people up. Whoever initiates much make a big choice. Something unusual, fantastical or strange. The responder simply has to act exactly as they would. 

That may sound obvious. But I find that students need to be reminded explicitly to do this. Two students did this.

Player 1: I gotta tell you something. Last night I was abducted by aliens. It was a classic silver thing like you see in the movies. It pulled me right up into the spaceship from my bed. Performed weird acts on me.

Player 2: (deeply concerned) Oh man, are you… are you okay?

I stopped the scene. That’s not what you would say if a friend told you they were kidnapped by aliens. That’s what an improvisers says who is under pressure to “say yes.” But I’m asking for a truthful response.

Player 1: They took me up there, they laid me on a bed. They performed, like, surgeries on me, they cut me open. And now I’m here! I just woke up, I was in my bed.

Player 2: Wait a minute. Sit down. (Player 1 sits.) Dude, I’m, like, worried about you, man.

Player 1: I’m kinda worried about ME! It’s like I’m the only one who saw it, so I like, I feel insane! I saw them! They were grey! They had the big eyes. And they were small! like this big, and they walked around me, and they poked and they looked and you’re just like “What’s going on?”  And I was like, is this how my life ends? IS this life?

Player 1: Dude, um, maybe we should go, like,  talk to a specialist. Someone who can help you with this?

You can dismiss opinions that people try to pin on you, and you can ask questions, and you can refuse to believe things and you can choose not to care! You also do not HAVE to find the initiation unusual if you don’t.

Child: Mom, I’ve decided I’m never going to school again!

Mom:  Oh, honey. You’ll learn to like school.

The actor playing the mom doesn’t find it weird for her child to say that. Great! No problem.

A few caveats you’ll have to point out: The responder cannot leave and must engage the person. 

And you cannot change any facts. If the weird thing is evident, you should believe it, although have a truthful reaction.

Player 1: (shoots gun at player) Did that bullet just bounce off of you man?

Player 2: Don’t tell anybody!

Player 1: What the fuck? Stay the hell away from me!

Player 2: Don’t tell anybody! I come from the planet Nangongongon! I come in peace don’t tell anyone!

Think of improv like a bicycle. “Saying yes” to the weird thing is pedaling, and expressing skepticism and “saying no” is like hitting the brakes. True, we need to be pedaling MORE than braking, but you also need to brake.

Wife: So babe, for dinner tonight, I kinda wanted to change things up. I got a peacock. And will you cut it up for me. I’ll take care of the salad.

Husband: Babe, where did you get this?

Wife: The neighbor’s backyard. They have a couple of them. They look like pests.  So I thought I was helping them.

Husband:  Babe, we have to put this back.

Wife: It’s already dead, we’re not putting it back.

Husband: I can see that it’s dead, we can just sort of. I mean…. I mean it sounds good.

Wife: Doesn’t it? Healthy protein.

Husband: Yeah. I’m just a little nervous. I mean… you have a peacock recipe? We have chicken in the freezer!

Wife: I wanted to change things up! And he walked in front of my car. Wait, I’m pretty sure this is a boy right, because of the long feathers?

Husband: I don’t know! Wait, you ran this thing down with your car?

You can see in this scene the husband has room to be won over if that’s what the scene needs. But he’s being real. The wife has a reason for her behavior that’s plausible without being so reasonable it kills the fun. 

The actor playing the husband has a good sense of what his character knows. He knows that he doesn’t know which a male peacock is (all peacocks are male, the females are peahens – but it makes sense he wouldn’t know that), but he notices when his wife said she hit it with her car.

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