Sketchy premises

CAUSING A TWO-PERSON SCENE Nate Fernald (pictured, left) and Steve O’Brien ponder getting their sketch on.

Photo: Nick Hernon

Every year for the Chicago Sketchfest (short for Chicago Sketchfestival), we, Team Submarine, decide to write a brand-new show. There are four main components that make up the process: writing, rehearsing, winning a bobsled race and then the big show itself. The writing portion is by far the most difficult. If we’ve learned one thing about Chicago, it’s that it’s impossible to do a good show without scripting it out entirely beforehand.

We like to draw from real-life experiences when we initially write sketches. Like the time Steve [O’Brien] failed his driver’s test because he just had his wisdom teeth out. Or the time Nate [Fernald] met Gay Dracula.

While each writing session is different, there are certain phrases that will always come up during the creative process, such as: “We need a better ending,” “Will it play in front of a crowd?,” “I don’t think your sketch is funny,” “Well, I just don’t think you get it,” “Oh, I get it. I get that it’s stupid,” “I’m not doing Sketchfest anymore,” “Fine, I’ll just do my solo show,” “Fine, I’ll go back home and raise my son,” and “That haircut makes you look like a bitch.” If we find that we are saying roughly two out of nine of these phrases during the writing process, then we know we’re on our way to a great show. Or breaking up.

Next comes the grueling rehearsal process. Most of it consists of finding excuses not to rehearse, such as family, work, significant others, Two and a Half Men, enjoying “War and Peach” (it’s a type of candle), snakes, pranks, bloopers, gooferz and spooferz. But eventually we have to buckle down and get serious. The show tends to go through a lot of changes during the rehearsal process. Like “Farting Grandma,” one of our favorite sketches from last year, ended up taking a complete 180 and becoming “Farting Great-Grandma.” It was a sacrifice, but it was better for the show as a whole.Observe: “BRRRRAP!” ( [*] <– press here for sound effect). “Great-Grandma, was that you?!?”

Hear the difference? (If the sound effect above does not work, please write multiple letters to fartsounds@timeoutchicago.com.) We’ve learned to be open to all possibilities. Change is part of the creative process, and nothing is final until it hits the stage.

Now that we’ve finally got weeks of writing and rehearsing under our belts, it’s time for the big day: the bobsled race! Every year around the same time as Sketchfest, a public school is threatened to be torn down and turned into a parking lot. But just in the nick of time, we always challenge the mean bank owner to a bobsled race in order to save the school. He then hires a professional bobsled team and tries to sabotage our homemade bobsled. But somehow, our good nature and miraculous high jinks always help us pull ahead in the end (and the rocket-powered bobsled doesn’t hurt, either). The school is saved, Nate gets the girl and Steve finds his gloves.

Uh-oh! We almost forgot about the Sketchfest show. It lasts about 40 minutes and then it’s over. Just in time to go back to Pizza Hut to celebrate the winning of the big bobsled race. We eat pizza while the mean bank owner eats his hat.

The whole creating-of-a-show endeavor is a tiresome but rewarding effort. It’s weeks and weeks of preparation all for a 40-minute show that we perform only once. But the fact that this show may never be seen again just makes it all the more exciting for us.

So that’s our writing process. What’s yours? (Please hold the magazine directly in front of your face and explain it to us.)

Team Submarine gets sandwiched at Sketchfest Friday 4 at 8pm and Saturday 5 at 9pm. See “Sketchfest schedule,” for the—well, you can figure it out.