Why is sketch comedy booming in LA?

I want to talk about the renaissance of sketch comedy that has taken place here in Los Angeles in recent years. Specifically this sudden expansion of SKETCH COMMUNITIES.

Compared to improv, sketch comedy has historically been a burdensome exercise. It’s something for people who can afford to put in the time to showcase themselves with theatricality and spectacle. For some, it’s a matter of pooling resources to produce a video that they hope will go viral online; for others, it’s assembling a group of collaborators to put up a one-off show that they’ll beg their friends to come see. In bigger markets, you can train at places like the Second City or the Groundlings, whose graduates perform sketch showcases, with the lucky few joining those theaters’ exclusive resident ensembles. But however you slice it, sketch is a lot of work.

The concept of the sketch community has changed all of that. Created by the UCB with their Maude teams, a sketch community is a network of house sketch teams at a theater, the way most theaters have a roster of house Harold teams or improv teams. Each sketch team is composed of 8-12 writers and performers who put up monthly shows that last about a half hour. The community helps sustain each team, providing an audience base for each other and a network of resources (props, costumes, video production, etc.). In addition to UCB, this model has spread to iO West, the Pack Theater, the Nerdist, and the Westside Comedy Theater.

As someone who has been deeply involved with the sketch community at iO West since 2012, I can tell you it’s a beautiful thing. There’s true passion and enthusiasm and creativity on these teams, and it’s getting us real industry attention – TV writing jobs, SNL auditions, write-ups in Splitsider, etc. The community at iO (and I’m sure sketch people at UCB and the Pack feel this way too) feels like what I imagine old Harold teams were like, before the market became flooded and regulated with oversight: raw, DIY, and healthily competitive.

I should also point out that a similar development appears to be happening in New York, with UCB-NY’s Maude teams inspiring sketch communities at the Magnet and the PIT. But I have no idea how successful those programs have been.

One major market that does NOT have these kinds of sketch communities, from what I can tell, is Chicago. The self-proclaimed mecca of sketch comedy! The icy comedy purgatory you must spend years honing your craft in before moving to LA or NYC – according to people who did exactly that!

Certainly, there’s plenty of great sketch comedy being performed in Chicago, at the Second City, the iO Theater, the Annoyance Theater, and other places. But their show formats are different. They either have an ensemble of elites (Second City), or they leave it to self-formed groups to pitch and put up their own variety shows in random slots on the calendar. It’s as if it hadn’t occurred to those theaters to structure sketch teams like their improv teams. Or maybe they don’t think sketch needs to be so organized at a lower level. Or maybe the hypertension from their unhealthy diets makes it hard to do quick changes between sketches.

I love applying “Guns, Germs, and Steel” logic to the comedy world, so I’m gonna take a stab at why this is the case. The simple answer is that Chicago doesn’t have a UCB theater, whereas New York and Los Angeles do, and this model of sketch communities is something that UCB spearheaded with Maude teams. But I think there’s a deeper reason that cuts to the core of the comedy in these markets.

Cameron Esposito is a Chicago comic who moved to LA, and she wrote an excellent article defending her new home from its “sell-out” reputation: “Work is at its center. People move here not because they have a dream, but because they have a dream they plan to achieve.” This is the best description I’ve found for what it’s like doing comedy in LA. LA celebrates “producers,” whereas Chicago celebrates “artists."

This isn’t to say that all the work I see coming from Chicago comedians is esoteric or unmarketable, or that the work from LA comedians has no artistic value. Your one-man show inspired by that Cubs fan you saw on the Brown Line on the way to Lou Malnattis is totally marketable, and my webseries about roommates in an apartment is going to redefine comedy as we know it.

But this distinction does point to the mindset required to be successful in LA. You can drift and work on projects that exist for their own sakes, but eventually, you’re going to have to make a product that you can sell. It costs too damn much to live here otherwise.

Sketch communities are a direct answer to that demand. They equip aspiring talent in LA with the useful tools that improv teams can’t provide: a writing packet of solid sketches, a cache of proven characters and bits, a monthly showcase of your work, and most importantly, a network of hard-working talent that’s making active strides toward their career goals. Sketch communities’ rapid expansion across five LA comedy theaters is evidence that this city is filled with people willing to put in the time to produce their content, hard-workers with dreams they plan to achieve.

So there you go. One non-toxic way the entertainment industry has influenced the comedy scenes of LA and New York: it’s made our sketch comedy a lot better.

