Sketchwright

I spent Thursday evening, Friday evening, and part of Saturday at Seattle Sketchfest.  I was largely disappointed by the local troupes.

It’s not because most of the local troupes are necessarily bad (and btw Charles was quite good), it is because I’m not a member of the audience that SHOULD like them.  Most of the sketchfest audience didn’t like them.  They sketch troupes may not realize that, though.

There was laughter for each troupe.  Each troupe got some positive feedback.  Bu were they paying attention to where the laughter originated?  In every local show, there were localized laughs coming from certain groups in the audience.  Some were surely friends, but some were probably actual fans.  Big laughs from the entire audience were almost entirely absent.

Realistically, you don’t get to Seattle Sketchfest just on the strength of your friends’ laughter.  You need to have some quality.  You probably have an audience.  It’s just that your audience may be but a small segment of the general Sketchfest audience, and if you don’t realize it and work to improve it you will not do any better than a lukewarm reception at Sketchfest, if Sketchfest doesn’t drop you from the lineup (as they should).

The “bad” comedians seemed, to me, to be lazy.  They had gaps of zero laughs (even from their fans) throughout sketches, clunkiness, sloppiness…  But why?  Nobody strives to suck.  They appear to be lazy because they don’t or won’t fix the problems in their sketches.  But I actually doubt that laziness is the root cause.  They don’t fix their sketches because they think they’re good enough.  They think they’re good enough because they hear laughter from the audience.  The bad comedians are letting themselves get fooled into believing they’re better than they are by their audiences.

The comedians are letting themselves believe that the experimental comedy audience (where many get their start) is the same as the mainstream audience.  It ISN’T!  The experimental comedy audience is a very valuable audience for EXPERIMENTING.  They (and I, when I’m seeing a show targeted to that audience) are more forgiving of roughness.  They give you guaranteed laughs, which is good for confidence but isn’t good for accurately gauging quality.

You know what happens when you only perform for one small audience?  You may get better, but only for your small audience.  If you only perform for audiences of experimental comedy, only those audiences will like you.  Your feedback will push you in that direction.  If you want to appeal to a broader (say, Sketchfest) audience, you have to craft your comedy to appeal to that audience.  And that means you probably have to perform to those audiences more often than once a year (two performances, one night apart).  If all you want to do is be good for your small regular audience, then that is fine, but I’m going to complain whenever I see you at the more mainstream events, and the rest of the audience will agree that you’re no good.

Going after the mainstream audience doesn’t have to mean you water down your message.  It can mean that you just do a better job of delivering it.  From the local troupes I didn’t like, I often saw good ideas with good jokes that were lacking only because the comedians didn’t work on the sketches enough.  Not enough rewrites, no workshopping, feedback from too-friendly audiences.  It’s not the audience’s fault that they don’t like you, it is your fault for not trying hard enough to meet the audience’s expectations.  Maybe you just shouldn’t perform in front of that audience, or maybe you should try to improve yourself with that audience in mind.  When you are putting on your best work in the best way possible, THEN you can complain about the mainstream audience (but I’ll probably disagree).  Don’t worry about losing your curent audience, high-quality mainstream comedy appeals to the experimental crowd.

If you want to have mainstream appeal, you have to try (and possibly fail) with the most mainstream audience you can get.  You really need to draw a new audience that doesn’t consist of your friends and experimental comedy fans.  If you do the same exact show a few times within a short calendar period (optimally, something like a 4-week run of 8pm Fri/Sat shows), your friends and experimental fans will stop coming and you’ll be left with the laugher (or silence) of an audience that is interested in, but not guaranteed to, laugh for you.  They’ll tell you what really works.

Another way to go after the mainstream audience?  Don’t be so satisfied with what you have.  Assume you can do better and go for it.  When I told a member of Hey You Millionaires that I really liked the show, part of his response was to point out some of the problems with it (transitions, for example).  I really respect that.  They were the best troupe of Sketchfest this year, and they’re hard on themselves.  If you want to be good, be hard on yourself.

A quote!
Lucy:  You’re too hard on yourself.
Tom:  You know who isn’t too hard on themselves?  Amateurs.
(From Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which wasn’t the best show, but it makes a good point here and is about sketch comedy)

Once you’re harder on yourself, how do you get better?  Read books that apply to sketchwriting.  Rewrite your sketches.  Get feedback from people who aren’t just going to rubber stamp your work.  Watch a lot of sketch comedy, and find out what appeals to the audience (especially if it doesn’t appeal to you).  Take a class (if possible).  Write a blog about sketch comedy!

Sketchfest should NOT be a festival of experimental sketch comedy, and it should not go after just the more experimental audience.  And it definitely should not expect that a mainstream audience is the same as the experimental comedy audience.  Sketchfest should have a larger appeal.  I’ve seen some excellent troupes pack Sketchfest.  The reason Sketchfest doesn’t sell every seat is because almost nobody is working on appealing to the general Sketchfest audience.  It’s time everyone realized that.