The following is a pretty cool article that came out last week to promote this year's Best Of The Best Festival in Portland. I met Holly after TROOP!'s show there last year and she was incredibly complimentary and interested in all things sketch.
Her review should be in the paper sometime this week and I'll post it here when it does.
The festival was amazing. It was the first I've been to where EVERY GROUP WAS SOLID. TROOP! was terrified. It was an honor and a nightmare to be in such great company. Kasper Hauser alone kept my mouth agape for 45 min. straight. I hope I laughed...I can't remember...I was flumoxed.
Anyway, here's the article:
The Oregonian -- Friday, July 16, 2004
Don't call them skits! HOLLY JOHNSON
What is it that makes us laugh? Skewed versions of our own lives, surreal takes on the human existence, satirical references to politicians we don't like? Forget the question: We're about to find out what tickles us and what doesn't, and the answer is different for everyone.
"The Best of the Best Sketch Fest," Portland's second annual national sketch comedy festival -- featuring nine sketch comedy groups from San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles and Chicago, plus Portland's host group, the 3rd Floor -- will bring us up to speed this weekend with a laugh-a-thon providing plenty to ponder on the nature of humor. In its second year, the festival has grown from eight groups to nine this summer, adding New York ensembles MEAT and Elephant Larry and the duo Brychael from Los Angeles.
What is sketch comedy, you ask? We know it from television's "Saturday Night Live," from "Monty Python's Flying Circus," even from "Your Show of Shows" from the 1950s. Neither improv nor stand-up, this genre, so perfect for TV but even more exciting live, is written and rehearsed by the actors, often with music, costumes, props and sets. It's a form actors love because they create their own mini-worlds. As Livia Scott of MEAT observes, where else can you portray an evil British child and a bear in a good season?
Sketch comedy may stand in the shadow of full-length plays, but small can be powerful. It's the short story next to the novel, the quick watercolor sketch compared with the big oil painting. Kevin Chesley, a member of L.A.'s Troop! performing this weekend, says a friend of his in the business likens improv to jazz and sketch comedy to rock 'n' roll.
"Somewhere, trapped between the comedy listings and the theater section lies sketch," Chesley said. "Even while 'Saturday Night Live' is known the world over and college dorm rooms ring with the quotes of 'Monty Python,' 'Mr. Show' and 'The Kids in the Hall,' to most, sketch is a bit of an odd duck. To those who choose to work in it . . . it is somehow the past and the future of both comedy and live theater."
Many groups are spawned from college drama departments. Some, like 3rd Floor, which has had 36 members since 1996, have a revolving-door policy where actors perform a while and go off to do a play, then come back again.
Ted Douglass, co-founder of 3rd Floor and a main force behind the Portland festival, says styles tend to differ geographically. "The West Coast is theatrical in presentation, whereas the Midwest and East Coast tend to use improv as a tool to come up with material."
No groups auditioned for the Portland event, he adds: They're all hand-picked. "We've seen each group in person" when performing in festivals in Chicago and Seattle, "and consider them to be the finest of the festival circuit. It's this great web of friends we have all over the country," Douglass said.
Portland's laugh-o-rama may be small compared to others, but it impressed Brandon Campbell, one of 3rd Floor's co-founders and now associate producer for the annual January Chicago Sketch Fest, which featured 75 groups on three stages last year, including 3rd Floor. The Portland ensemble has consistently earned enthusiastic reviews in the Windy City, including praise from the esteemed Second City, king of Chicago's 65 or more sketch groups.
"I liked Portland's approach: I liked its intimacy, and because it was only happening on two nights, I think it helped make it more of an event," Campbell said. "There were a couple of moments in the Portland festival that Chicago has wanted to model, even though we're a lot larger."
What makes a strong sketch company? Nine 3rd Floor members performing this weekend would agree that tight material comes from good minds in sync. And what could be better than writing your own material and performing it to see what works and what doesn't? Douglass, Jordana Barnes, Andy Buzan, Loren Hoskins, Jason Keller, Andy Lindberg, Kevin-Michael Moore, Daria O'Neill and Tony St. Clair took a break to talk shop, amid much laughter, one Saturday afternoon.
"I think one of the strengths is that everybody in the group is talented beyond what the group itself entails," said St. Clair, a Portland actor who recently performed in "The Big House" at Artists Repertory Theatre. "We all work in other theaters, all do a lot of commercial work, we're singers and dancers. So when you have that kind of multi-talented aspect, it makes it easier to write something. You know if you bring in something good, you've got people with the chops to handle it."
O'Neill, radio personality on KRSK (105.1 FM), has done her share of plays but believes sketch work is unique in its altruism.
"Maybe it's just this particular group of people, but there's a really amazing sense of appreciation, encouragement and excitement from the beginning of the writing process," O'Neill said. "People seem just as excited about a concept that's funny that comes from someone else as they do from their own ideas. It's really a collaborative process like no other."