In This Week's News
November 2012

Lee Comedy Club Blog
December 16, 2004

By Rebecca ("Beck") Krefting
University of Maryland

Jessamyn West, in her 1976 novel, The Woman Said Yes, wrote that, "Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely necessary." What she meant is that we all have that writer inside of us, but it requires hard work, dedication and most of all, belief in yourself that you can produce something worthwhile, that's the "guts" part.

This week when it came time to cast for all the newly written sketches, we discovered that there was a paucity of available sketches. Chris Gaines and Caitlin O'Donnell were the only ones who completed sketches this week, but unfortunately Chris's weren't typed so we couldn't photocopy them for the rest of the students (though this is something I can remedy by next week). On the other hand, Caitlin's was typed and she was put in charge of casting and staging her sketch about Oprah. It was a huge success, and the favorite for this week's workshop.

The Hilnbrand brothers bring high energy to the workshop and are diligently working on sketches, but didn't have anything completed, though I worked with Brian H. on a funny sketch (well, hopefully "funny" is a given in this process) he's writing about new police recruits.

We also tried a new sketch written by former Comedy Club member, and now weekly aid, Ryan Price. He wrote a spoof on the Comedy Club, including himself, Harry and several other remaining cast members. Though, it was funny we were concerned that parents and audience members wouldn't "get it in the way we do since it is about people we know.

Because we didn't have enough sketches for everyone to participate in, I was in charge of corralling the remaining students and leading them in some improvisational games. Though we didn't have the time I would have liked to move through several games, we nonetheless had fun playing "Hitchhiker" and it was helpful (and hilarious) to see the students working to perform different characters.

We had three new students this week, all of which impressed Harry and I; actually we had two new students and the other one accidentally wandered into the practice after missing his bus and in a simple twist of fate decided to join the Comedy Club. I might have had something to do with that though since I smelled particularly nice on Tuesday.

In order to ensure the weekly production of new scripts, Harry is breathing (hotly) down the necks of the Solomon sisters, who have provided very funny and successful sketches in the past. It's nice though, to see sketches coming from some new faces, brave young people carving a literary and comedic path for themselves. I, for one, am excited to see Chris's plays performed next week and perhaps one of my own.