COVER STORY: Comedy from a nerd’s point of view
By Joe Scott, News & Record (GoTriad)
March 1, 2010
New York has “Saturday Night Live” and the Upright Citizens Brigade.
Los Angeles has the Groundlings.
Chicago has The Second City.
And Greensboro has Mon Frère, a sketch comedy troupe founded last year by five friends.
Composed of brothers AJ Schraeder and Al-don Schraeder, as well as John McIntosh, Bob Beshere and Mathew Schantz, Mon Frère serves up laughs steeped in nerd culture.
Instead of mocking political figures, the group aims at more geeky targets such as Dungeons & Dragons, C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia” and the ’80s action cartoon series “Thundercats.”
“Not to make a daft comparison to the feminist movement, but it’s nerd empowerment,” Beshere says. “We’ve banded together.”
The troupe’s members hone their material so that audiences are in on the laughs, even if they’ve never played a video game or visited a comic book shop.
After hitting the road to play shows in Boone and at the N.C. Comedy Arts Festival in Chapel Hill, the members of Mon Frère have been working on all-new material that they will perform live on July 28.
Free to ad-lib
When AJ Schraeder founded Mon Frère in April 2009, it was his second attempt at starting a sketch comedy group in Greensboro. A member of the Idiot Box’s improv team since 2004, he first created the sketch comedy team No F in Sketch, composed of fellow Idiot Boxers.
Because of conflicting schedules, rehearsals were difficult to schedule, and eventually the group disbanded.
“I’ve always liked writing and rewriting because you get to explore things that way,” says Schraeder, who took a course on sketch-writing offered online by The Second City. “You can get a lot for sketch out of improv, too, I feel, but you get to revisit the idea more than once, which appeals to me.
“You get to make costumes that fit your idea and make a more total picture.”
In building the roster for Mon Frère –– French for “my brother” –– Schraeder looked to his friends, starting with McIntosh, a professional actor Schraeder met while attending Greensboro College. McIntosh moved to New York after graduating, hoping to make it on Broadway, only to return to Greensboro after growing weary of the high living expenses and “cattle call” auditions.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to act anymore,” McIntosh says. “I just didn’t want to sit in a five-hour line to get told I can’t be seen.”
McIntosh and Schraeder began performing two-man sketches together at open-mike nights, providing the catalyst for Mon Frére.
“We had so much fun and got so much great feedback that we wanted to do an entire, full-length show, which is much easier to do when you have a group,” AJ Schraeder says.
Filling out the lineup is Schraeder’s youngest sibling, Al-don Schraeder; Beshere, an English professor at UNCG and regular at the Idiot Box; and Schantz, the group’s guitarist, who also plays most of their female roles.
“Just having a tight, intimate group makes us feel comfortable,” Al-don Schraeder says. “That way we feel free to ad-lib with each other.”
Anatomy of a sketch
During a recent rehearsal for Mon Frère’s newest show, the group must rehearse without Schantz, who is on vacation.
This is not a setback because head writers AJ and Al-don Schraeder know Schantz’s lines verbatim.
“We write the sketches, and we know most of the lines,” Al-don Schraeder says. “And because we also take turns directing, you may not know the exact words every time, but you know where the sketch needs to go and what needs to happen to make the sketch move forward.”
The process the troupe uses to create sketches is a combination of planned and unplanned elements. It starts with an initial idea .
“A lot of times we’ll be hanging out and something will happen, and we’ll be like, oh well, there’s a sketch,” AJ Schraeder says. “We keep notebooks of ideas as they happen.”
When a member really likes an idea, he calls dibs to write a first draft. Afterward, it is introduced to the group, which then gives the sketch a read-through and finds ways to punch up the second draft.
Even after the script is complete, the jokes continue to be revised during rehearsals.
“We do a lot of ad-libs that sometimes work their way into the final sketch,” Al-don Schraeder says.
“That’s where a lot of the improv comes into play,” Beshere says.
After a sketch has been rewritten and honed by hours of practice, it must still undergo one final test — the audience.
“My preference is to do whatever we think is funny,” AJ Schraeder says. “But if it doesn’t work consistently, it’s a bad joke.”
Nerd uprising
Nerds have a reputation for being ridiculed by jocks and bullies, the members of Mon Frère say, but they currently rule the schoolyard.
“Not to reduce it in any way, but from a purely capitalistic standpoint, intelligence is so marketable,” Beshere says. “The biggest Fortune 500 CEOs are all nerds, and they did that by being smart.”
With the so-called “Nerd Uprising” trending heavily in American culture, it makes sense that nationally touring comedians such as Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn and Jasper Redd have earned major followings with jokes about “Star Wars” and old Nintendo games.
“We’re at the age where we’re not scared anymore. We found each other, and the Internet has helped that,” AJ Schraeder says. “So it’s like, ‘Oh, other people do enjoy these things, too. The football player was wrong, and I will never have to see that guy again.’ ”
During a Mon Frère show, the troupe often will act out a scenario rooted in geek subculture, but with a twist. A sketch about a group of guys playing Dungeons & Dragons veers to the absurd when the Dungeon Master — or DM — dupes the other players into facing their most difficult quest of all time: picking up women. And in “A Hundred Acres of Crazy,” AJ Schraeder plays an adult Christopher Robin as a bent manchild trying to procure honey for his stuffed Pooh Bear that he keeps in a baby carrier.
“A sketch is like a contained little play where you are getting a singular idea across,” AJ Schraeder says, “and you have the ability to keep raising the stakes within five minutes to get to the point of ridiculousness.”
One goal that is important to the members of Mon Frère is to make their humor accessible to the members of the audience who don’t get the pop-culture references. For instance, their sketch based on “Thundercats” is rife with trivia from the old cartoon. However, most of Mon Frère’s punchlines poke fun at these once-adventurous characters who are now lazy and more concerned with eating Mexican food than fighting evil.
“It’s about finding those things in the nerd culture that relate to everybody,” AJ Schraeder says.
“You don’t have to know ‘Thundercats’ to get it,” McIntosh says. “You’ll see lazy friends, know they’re supposed to be superheroes and say, ‘I get it.’ ”
Want to go?
What: Live sketch comedy by Mon Frère
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: The Idiot Box, 248 S. Elm St., Greensboro
Tickets: $5-$8
Information: 274-2699, www.idiotboxers.com
Name: Al-don Schraeder
Hometown: Jamestown
Age: 24
Celebrity impersonations: Jesus (of Nazareth)
Favorite Saturday-morning cartoon: “Science Court”
Most desired superpower: Whatever it is Magneto does
Desert-island video game: Tetris
Best part about being in Mon Frère: The money and power
Biggest example of nerd pride: Glasses strap
Name: Mathew “The Stallion” Schantz
Hometown: Columbia, Md.
Age: 24
Celebrity impersonations: Christopher Walken, Walter Matthau
Favorite childhood toy: “Ghostbusters” action figures and my Proton Pack, especially
Most desired superpower: The Will and the Word, basically Magic, but I liked the way David Eddings described it in “The Belgariad.”
Desert-island video game: Really any Squaresoft RPG, such as “Final Fantasy” or “Super Mario RPG.”
Biggest example of nerd pride: No matter where I am or how inappropriate it is, I will get into a debate or argument about most sci-fi/fantasy/mythical topics especially “Star Wars.”
Name: AJ Schraeder
Hometown: Jamestown
Age: 27
Celebrity impersonations: Mel Blanc and Elmo. I have a loose definition of celebrities.
Favorite Saturday-morning cartoon: “King Arthur and the Knights of Justice”
Favorite childhood toy: She-ra or April O’Neil — both way hot.
Desert-island video game: “SimCity” or “Civilization”
Best part about being in Mon Frère: People have to listen to my crazy.
Biggest example of nerd pride: Own my height in Dungeons & Dragons books.
Name: Bob Beshere
Hometown: Charleston, S.C.
Age: 29
Celebrity impersonations: Jason Statham, Inappropriate Mr. Tumnus
Favorite Sunday-morning cartoon: “Eek! The Cat”
Favorite childhood toy: Lego — they allowed me to destroy what I created — who doesn’t want to feel like Shiva?
Desert-island video game: “Marvel Ultimate Alliance” because then I could be Hulk without anyone questioning me.
Best part about being in Mon Frère: Chicks dig it when you dress up like Panthro from “Thundercats.”
Biggest example of nerd pride: Currently running three Dungeons & Dragons campaigns set in the same world with crossovers. I have a problem.
Name: John McIntosh
Hometown: Waterbury, Conn.
Age: Timeless
Celebrity impersonations: Thor
Favorite Saturday-morning cartoon: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”
Favorite childhood toy: Do Dungeons & Dragons books count as toys?
Desert-island video game: “World of Warcraft”
Best part about being in Mon Frère: I get to be a ridiculous human being under the guise of creativity.
Biggest example of nerd pride: I was paid to be a guild leader in “World of Warcraft.” I made enough to survive in NYC for a full year before having to get another job.
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