During the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, which is currently underway, more than 160 comedy troupes will perform 188 shows across eight days.

One of those groups features former Wheaton resident Mike Movido, who, along with six other comedians, is putting on the video game-themed show, "The Book of Genesis."

Movido recently spoke about his comedy, the show and his inspiration with Wheaton Suburban Life reporter Nathan Lurz.

Lurz: What brought you into comedy?

Movido: Growing up, I think comedy has just always been something that I loved. For most of my school years – elementary school until high school, really – I was actually always very shy and reserved. But when I got to high school I had a lot of friends who were involved with theater and the speech team, and wanted to hang out with my friends and decided to audition. ...

I didn't know that I was that funny, but I ended up getting placed with one of the comedy events for speech team, humorous duet acting, where you get a partner and are given an eight-minute cut of a comedic play or script and have to perform without any props except a table and two chairs. I competed with that every weekend and I fell in love with it.

Lurz: What can you tell me about 'The Book of Genesis?'

Movido: It's a sketch review that revolves around gaming humor. I got involved with it during its first iteration over this past summer – a friend of mine ... put out some feelers about finding a cast for a show he and his friends wanted to put together about video games with a lot of nerd humor, which sounded like it would be a lot of fun and something I would really enjoy.

Now I think they're excited to have me come back and be a part of the process again. We've developed some newer material to merge with some of the older material from the previous show.

Lurz: When doing lots of referential comedy, it can be hard to keep the attention of an audience member who isn't familiar with the material engaged. Is that something you guys considered when crafting the material?

Movido: Something I'm really excited about is that we as a cast agreed to also tackle the touchy issues in an approachable way to the audience. ... Things like gender and race issues.

One of the big topics we are addressing in this iteration is 'Gamergate.' We're really trying to show all the sides of that and why it is such an important issue and that it's not really about ethics in gaming journalism, it's really about gender issues ... and things people don't want to talk about. We try to present it in a way that allows the audience into it and allows them to stay comfortable with the material.

Lurz: For those that don't know, what is Gamergate?

Movido: It started with a lover-scorned story, where a couple had broken up and one was a female video game designer and her boyfriend accused her of sleeping with a game reviewer to get better reviews for a game she had worked on – which was unfounded and started this uproar in the gaming community under the guise of a call for ethics in journalism.

Lurz: So you guys tried to make it more than just songs and sketches about video games – more of a critical look at the medium?

Movido: It's beyond just video gaming culture. It's a social commentary on our community ... There's some humor and references to gaming, but we're talking about real issues that everyone can relate to ... and tackling some very political, very controversial issues layered on humor related to gaming in a way that our audience can feel comfortable with.

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If you go

What: "The Book of Genesis" at the 14th annual Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival

Where: Stage 773, 1225 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago

When: 6 p.m. Jan. 18

Cost: $15

Information: ChicagoSketchfest.com