Comedy Under Construction: Cheap Drills & Wing Nuts

by Linda Carson, Jim Gardner, John McMullen & Dave Till

"Death. Death creeps in on little cat feet and says, 'Fooled you. Bet you thought I was fog.'"

On a Friday night, four intrepid writers met in one room and brainstormed ideas for gutsy "leading edge" sketch comedy. Saturday morning, they started writing. Sunday afternoon they handed whatever they had to a bunch of very brave actors, who workshopped the stuff with scripts in hand.

"Death. Whenever I visit my sister's kids, I think, 'Death to Turtles. Death to Barney. Hot flaming death to all Muppet Babies!' Then I cut off all Barbie's hair and melt it in the Easy-Bake Oven."

We did this comedy blitz four times, pulled out the best actor- and audience-tested material, and called it a show.

Why? We wanted to see if we could do it. We wanted to find out how far we could push the notion of sketch comedy. We wanted a way to turn what we do (writing) into bucks we could donate to a local charity. (Proceeds went to the local branch of Habitat for Humanity. That's our excuse for the title.)

"Death. That's all. Just Death."

The weekend blitzes were great. The final show, Comedy Under Construction, was a lot more work than we thought it'd be, full of classic amateur theatre pettiness and our own o'ervaulting ambition. We had some great moments, pretty much all sullied by nasty memories! You, however, can create a pleasant politics-free version of the show in your head by reading an excerpt from the show, the Big Penis Sketch by yours truly.

Of course, Linda Carson and her co-writers hold the copyright on this script and they'd be forced to take bold action if you used it without permission or claimed it as your own. Contact me by emailing lccarson@bigblackpig.com if you want to perform this or any of my plays.