Photo: Courtesy of Adult Swim / Provided by PR email. The art/comedy troupe Wham City Comedy — consisting of Robby Rackleff, Cricket Arrison, Ben O’Brien and Alan Resnick — use two interesting words to define their sketches on AdultSwim.com, two words that can present some landmines for performers: interactive and live. The comedians’ latest project to exhibit these qualities is The Call of Warr, a followup to their successful improv series The Cry of Mann (they have cornered the market on nouns that are autocorrected by Google searches). Premiering Halloween week on AdultSwim.com, the five nights of comedy featured a story with four soldiers, a prisoner and four civilians who are lost and trapped in a deserted town in a mysterious forest. That’s only the basic premise: Things get wondrously weird after that. Plus, the audience that tuned in live could call in and chat with the group, which meant Wham City needed to expect the unexpected. Wham City’s members have been working together since their days in Baltimore. They recently moved to Los Angeles and produce work under the company name AB Video Solutions. If fans missed the live streams of The Call of War on AdultSwim.com, no worries. The episodes are archived and available here. Recently, Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with the art/comedy collective, who decided to answer in one voice. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style. What inspired the group to return with The Call of Warr?

We were so excited last year by the format and wanted a chance to do it again now that we (sort of) know what we’re doing. A lot of us have backgrounds in live performance and film, and it felt really powerful to combine those things into one unified whole. It felt very exciting to talk to the audience in real time and incorporate their contributions immediately, folding their world into the world of the show.

How does the creative process work when putting together a special like this?

Robby created this series, so he comes up with a plot arc and writes first drafts that get passed around. Then we all do rewrites and talk about the world of the show. We reach out to the amazing designers that we work with and get their insight into things like costumes, camera angles and sets. Then we all come to the studio in Atlanta at Adult Swim, and the chaos begins.

We have a very short time to take all the ideas and make them real. It’s a mix of the most mundane tasks ever (endless thrift store runs and running cables) and part high-level creative discussions. Everything is rehearsed in a very short span of time. Usually an hour long play would have around six weeks of rehearsal time, and with this project we essentially do five-hour long plays with five days of rehearsal.

How live are these live episodes, and what challenges come from being live?

Except for some relatively short prerecorded scenes (which don’t happen in every episode), it’s 100 percent live. That lends it an urgency that is exciting but is also very terrifying. Sometimes things fall down that shouldn’t.

Were you surprised by the success of The Cry of Mann?

Yeah! A live show suffers from an immediate handicap because it requires the audience to be in a certain place at a certain time. TV is moving in the opposite direction where everything is on demand. We didn’t have any idea how many people would watch it live, call in or chat at us during the show. We also didn’t expect people would be nice! The callers (and drawers) adapted to the world and became so helpful. They were so generous with their time and creativity. With every performance you hope that you create a connection to the audience, but this was one that we could feel in real time. And that is a big gift that they all gave us.

When did you first fall in love with live performance and comedy?

We are all in love with each other and do not love live performance or comedy.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

The Call of Warr, from Wham City Comedy, recently premiered on AdultSwim.com and is now archived. Click here for more information.