5 Questions With Summer of Tears

Time for another edition of 5 Questions. Today I talk with Summer of Tears a sketch comedy group that is being featured on the website TheStuffInside.com, a Jim Beam sponsored site that is helping to promote people that they think are talented, focused, driven, and well pretty damn funny.

1)    One thing that always has interested me about comedy is the different paths people take to movies and television. For example on SNL, some of the cast members come from a strong improv background while others come from stand up comedy. Do you think there is a different skill set needed to do improv versus doing stand up? Do you think that stand up people and improv people have a totally different makeup?

In their heart all any comedian wants to do is make people laugh and provoke a reaction. That being said, there is a big difference between writing and performing sketch, and writing and performing stand up. In sketch, you’re essentially writing a tiny play. You also know that there will be other people on stage to bounce off of. Stand up comedians are amazing because there’s no one else up there with them. There’s no one else to blame if a bit goes down in flames. Which is what sketch comedy is all about: blaming others for inadequacies in the material.

2) In general comedy seems like such a competitive industry. I know a lot of your troupe members work in the entertainment business and probably don’t want to step on anyone’s toes so I understand you maybe reluctant to answer this. Does anyone in comedy actually respect Carlos Mencia? Does it make you physically ill to see some people have success that you feel are less talented or  not as funny than yourselves? Who do you find unbearably unfunny? On the flip side of this who makes you laugh?

The lack of respect for Carlos Mencia is probably more due to Joe Rogan’s antics than it is Mencia’s actual material. When Rogan made that youtube video pointing out all of the instances when Mencia
ripped off jokes, it was unbelievable. It’s strange, and this probably should have been mentioned when answering your first question, but stand-up and sketch kind of exist in their own individual worlds.
Unless a television show is involved, you often don’t see a stand-up doing sketch or vice versa.

On the flip side, we love Eddie Izzard, Tim Minchin, Kirk Fox, and this very funny up and comer named Harris Wittels, as far as stand up is concerned. For sketch: Good Neighbor Stuff, Invisible Engine, Fatal
Farm, KevInda and a one man show called All American Push Up Party by Dusty Warren. We basically love watching people who make us wonder “how the hell did they come up with that?”  In the past 28 months Todd has only found this funny:

1- Dutch Pedophile Idol

2- Really Creepy Sex Abuse PSA

3) How does your writing process work with 6 members and a director? When you read about other troupes like “Kids in the Hall” and “The State” there always seem to be sub-groups to the troupe. For example some people might really want to go down a more absurdest route while others would rather attack pop culture. How does that work with Summer of Tears? How do you determine stylistic where you want to go?

In your video “Danceout” Sara really has a striking resemblance to Ann Coulter except without the blond hair and the protruding Adam’s apple. Actually I really don’t have a question to go along with this I just wanted to point it out and tell you that I was disturbed.

The writing process usually involves the two of us (Rob and Todd) writing a sketch, and then bringing it to the group to read out loud. We then hear any suggestions they have for funnier lines, beats, etc.
and either incorporate them, or pompously ignore them.  That’s how it usually plays out. That’s not to say that other members don’t write. Kirstin actually has an awesome one woman show, so most of her writing goes into that. But every once in a while somebody else brings a sketch written out, or has an impression that’s too good to NOT write something around… Jamieson Fry, is our director only for the filmed material. Live theatre is beneath him. But he also edits everything and does any other post work. He’s a one man wrecking crew.

Stylistically, we pretty much stick to the simple rule of doing what makes us laugh. That usually works out pretty well. When it doesn’t, we just label ourselves misunderstood geniuses and move on. But
everyone’s sense of humor lines up most of the time. It doesn’t matter whether it’s absurdist or whatever. If we find it funny, we’ll do it. The only thing we actively stay away from is anything political. We have an aversion to writing anything that we couldn’t perform five years from now because it’s no longer relevant.

4) Which do you prefer: working in front of a live audience or filming content? Is it hard to determine if what you are doing is funny without the instant reaction of an audience?

It’s a cheap answer, but we love doing both. There’s nothing like that immediate gratification of having an audience laugh at what you’re doing on stage. On the other hand, filming sketches allows us
to do things that we couldn’t pull off in a theatre. In the editing room, we don’t really focus on what an audience would laugh at because, again, we use ourselves as the barometer. It’s gotta be fun for us to watch or perform. There’s no point in doing any of this if we find ourselves catering to somebody else.

5) What words or phrases do you just find automatically funny?

Because of our refined sense of humor, we’ll usually laugh at any word that contains the syllable “dick”.  Personally, Todd finds any combination of the words “rape” “baby” and “perpendicular” funny.  Try it.  Not out loud though.

Check out summer of tears and the stuff inside.

This is going up humor-blogs.com