Superheroes and Sketches

Have you noticed all of the superhero "nods" lately? There are all the summer films, which I'm enjoying, and HBO recently premiered a documentary about real-life caped crusaders, which was just fascinating!

Ironically, I recently wrote a sketch comedy piece about a superhero manicurist named Manny. It was performed last week at  The PIT (The People's Improv Theatre) and received great response. I was surprised by the uproarious laughter my sketch generated and was greatly encouraged to keep writing.


The class itself was my first experience in "round table" writing, though our tables formed more of a square, and I couldn't help but think of us as "knights of comedy" in one way shape or form. Or perhaps we were more like squires. :)

Each week our fearless leader and teacher Alex Zalben, provided us with a sketch format, which we'd write and then read to the class. We'd listen to each other and provide constructive criticism, saying what we liked about the sketches as well as addressing "room for improvement."

It was such a positive environment, and last week's class performance was such a treat, because every writer had tweaked their pieces, following the teacher's guidance, and it made for a really fun evening of sketch comedy.

So what does this have to do with superheroes? Well, one of our projects was to write a superhero sketch, taking a mundane task and finding the funny (and the fantastic) in it. That was my favorite sketch, hence the reason I worked on it for the class performance.

And this makes me think of the Superhero documentary, about ordinary people trying to make a difference in their own unique way. There are a lot of superheroes in my life. I think we all can have an incredibly positive impact on each other. And this gives me hope.