First off, I have always called my writings skits as opposed to plays because number one, it sounds less pretentious when you are parodying Gilligan’s Island, and number two, it takes the pressure off performers. Still, most of these do require a bit more preparation than a Boy Scout skit that ends with someone getting doused with a bucket of water (I'm not knocking those skits--a bucket of water or pie in the face is always funny). My main thing is that both the rehearsal and the actual performance should be fun.
For things to get started, there really needs to be one person to champion the skit. Once you have someone willing to act as the facilitator (or director if you must) then you are halfway home. Most members of 12 Step fellowships are natural hams and are more than willing to be in a skit. I don't have auditions, I just usually ask individuals I feel would either be good in it and/or would get lots of other people there to see them. Not having auditions also avoids the whole uncomfortable thing of me having to choose one person over another.
Once I have cast a skit, I like to have just one rehearsal where we run through it a couple of times. That way it is still kind of fresh when we finally perform it. Now, we always just read the skit from the scripts when we perform it because memorizing it is just a little too daunting and would require more practices and I ain't got time for all that. I usually highlight each actor's lines on their respective scripts with a marker.
I encourage the actors to have fun and relax because the audience is very friendly and wants to be entertained. Usually my only suggestions are to wait if the people are laughing before saying the next line so they catch it. Often the biggest laughs are from someone messing up a line or add-libbing! I get a lot of my music from the library, but some things I have had to buy like The Star Trek Sound Effects CD. Music, sound effects, props, and costumes really help set off a skit.
I usually make the signs that have the title sequences or credits on posterboard and have someone carry them out by hand or use an easel (that person is called the Sign Technician). When I do skits that require music or specific sound effects, I use a cassette tape instead of CD. The reason is because I can record everything in sequence and play it and pause it more accurately. CDs can skip, but tapes don't and that helps to suspend the disbelief of the audience. Still, the funnest part of any skit is the people.
SPECIFIC TIPS, BACKGROUND and HELP
1. A VERY BRADY BUSINESS MEETINGcame about because the characters are so well known and it practically wrote itself. This was a fun one and it got an extra boost because the church where we performed it had a big screen and a powerpoint set up. When we had our rehearsal I set up a piece of cardboard painted blue behind each actor and took pictures of them with a digital camera looking straight at me, to the side and up and then transferred those into Microsoft Powerpoint and made the famous "brady grid" that they would show at the beginning and end of each episode. I had to buy "The Best of The Brady Bunch" (I got it from Amazon.com so I wouldn't bump into someone I know coming out of Tower Records and have to explain why I was spending good money on such a disc) and that was a real fun part when the Brady kids sang.
PICTURES: BRADY GRID BRADY BACKDROP
2. ALCOHOLIC CSI came about really because I just loved the idea of blaring the Who's theme song at a Unity Day. Also, the whole premise of crime scene investigators trying to discover why a group died instead of a person, was appealing. This skit probably had the most props of any I've done. The actors had badges which were just paper on cardboard, but they were copied from some store that sells actual badges and it looked cool. They all had latex gloves on as well. I had Grissom use an actual microscope (my daughter's) and that added a nice touch and got a completely unexpected laugh from the audience.
3. ALCOHOLIC DRAGNETwas not my idea. In fact, it was the brainchild of a friend of mine and I just reworked the second scene and fleshed out the third with Judge Judy. This skit was hilarious mainly because of the costumes. Perp 1 had a huge psychedelic afro and Perp 2 also had a crazy getup that inflated her Dolly Partonesque...smile. I played Judge Judy. I am a 6' 4" man so I look nothing like her, but I did have a robe (complete with the neck doily thing she wears), a wig, and my trusty gavel. When I came out they must have laughed for five minutes straight. This skit reflected 2004's General Service Conference theme (Singleness of Purpose) and did so in a humerous yet ultimately informative way. Having the dramatic Dragnet music (the four notes everyone knows--da-da dum dum) is a must.
4. ALCOHOLIC NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER is an easy skit to do and actually is more of just a sketch. The idea for this one came when I brought my "normie" brother with me to a meeting and I introduced him and said I wanted to show him recovering alcoholics in their natural habitat.
5.ALCOHOLIC WEDDING DAY is another brief sketch, but when we did it at a birthday night celebration at my home group, it went over very well.
6. BLACK JACK DANIELS VS. THE HAPPY DESTINY KID is a fun western skit. I used big stand-up cardboard boxes to paint a backdrop of a western scene with a cactus and rattler and also made Miss Kitty's Sober Saloon as well. During the showdown between the two title characters I played the theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" and rolled a real tumbleweed in front of them.
7. CARNIVORES ANONYMOUS is one of those skits that can be performed with little or even no rehearsal. I painted pictures of all the animals on posterboard and put strings around them so they could hang around the actor's necks. Crocodile is the only one who needs the whole script. The other animals can have their lines and the line by Crocodile which prompts them to speak. This is a very simple skit, but very funny. Both times we have performed it, people were cracking up. The first perfomance was at a Unity Day and a woman just picked people at random that day, they went into a room to rehearse during a break, and it was a smash! My favorite line is the one about DuckBill Wilson and Dr. Bobcat.
PICTURE: CARNIOVORES ANONYMOUS CAST
8. DRINKS WITH WOLVES is a parody of one of my favorite movies and is in no way meant to be insulting to Native Americans. I actually bought quite a few props for this one just to make it more realistic. I had a costume for Barfs Like a Buffalo, three feather headresses (for Drinks With Wolves, Argues With Sponsor, and Farts Like a Moose), a breastplate for the Drinks With Wolves, and a civil war-type hat for Major Tom. It made a difference, but the skit should be funny even without them.
9. DRIVE THRUis a lot of fun to do and is fairly simple. Originally, I was going to do it without props and let the audience just use their imagination, but it really does add a lot when you have visual cues. A refrigerator box with a hole cut out in the front served as the drive thru and my friend Ken made a car ( a 1957 Chevy Bel Air) out of cardboard. I used the car prop at a different Unity Day and ruined it so Ken made a Hummer for when we performed this skit at our Summer Assembly. I made a clerk's hat out of paper and when the manager comes to the window I just took off the hat and lowered my voice. It's a lot of fun.
PICTURES: DRIVE THRU IN SAN JOSE VACAVILLE CAST #1 VACAVILLE CAST #2
10. FAR OUT TO PHIZZ-ZATis the only skit I've written which I never saw performed. My home district, along with three others, put on a inter-district event and asked me to come up with something funny so I did. Unfortunately, the date of the event was two days after I had surgery and I was unable to attend. Reports were very positive and really the only props this one required was a tape of the two songs used when the characters are introduced, a tape recorder, and an outfit for Bill Bellbottom (we just used the outfit that Perp 1 wore in "Alcoholic Dragnet"). This skit could be revised to have Susan Y. Fie dressed up in "modern" clothes or maybe someone with lots of body piercings could play her.
PICTURE: FAR OUT IN NAPA
11. FIRST THINGS FIRST FASHION SHOWwas actually an idea I "borrowed" from some women at my church who did a similar skit for some event. It was very well received and so much fun to do. You can add lots of different fun variations to this one.
12. THE FLINTSTONES IN GENERAL SERVICE ROCKS was a difficult script to write because like Fred, I think the General Service Conference theme for 2008 is a bit unwieldy. I considered getting costumes for the cast but since we had no budget I just painted the pictures of the cast on posterboard and added some string. When Barney pulls out the magic 8 ball,it as attached to the posterboad with velcro.
PICTURE: FLINTSTONES CAST IN MIDDLETOWN
13. GILLIGAN STYLE is another favorite. I have to say that the casting on this one was spot on. When the characters came out, the audience just roared! For the most part, they did their own costumes and while they were sparse, it was enough to really set the skit off. This one practically wrote itself because the characters are so well defined and well known. I added a little enmity between Mary Ann and Ginger because it was so easy and got huge laughs. I was pleased to include the LIM (Loners Internationalists Meeting) as the central piece of literature in the skit to try and raise awareness of it. My best story about this skit was that after we did it we had an interactive discussion about the Agenda Topics and a woman quoted the AA Service Manual to underscore a point she was trying to make. Only she actually quoted Mrs. Howell quoting the Service Manual. That's why I write these skits.
PICTURE: GILLIGAN STYLE IN SAN JOSE
14. IDEA TO REALITY is similar to Carnivores Anonymous, in that it is one of those skits that can be performed with little or no rehearsal. It's a great way to get people involved at a function. This one is a little preachy and not as funny as others, but it makes great points about the value of general service.
15. JAMES BOND AGENT DOUBLE A 7is one of my favorites. I used the THX droning sound you hear at the beginning of movies and then the 20th Century Fox Fanfare at the beginning of the skit while the Sign Technician did her thing.When Bond makes his first entrance into the skit it is a great moment. The Bond theme playing, the cap gun firing, the whole thing really sets the tone for the rest of the skit. Now, I never require great actors in my skits: the whole idea is to just get people from the fellowship involved. Still, when we did this one we had great actors who really hammed it up, especially Bond and Lovely Newbie. Our Bond even added a passable British accent! Costumes always help and Bond should definitely have a sport coat and bow tie. A tux might even be better but I could only dream of such a thing. Q had a white lab coat which was a nice touch.It's important that the little section where Q is zapping Bond with the vocal silencer is timed well. I used the photon torpedo sound effect from the Star Trek sound effects CD.
16. MICROSOFT SOBRIETY 3.1 is one which we have not performed yet. It should be very simple to perform and will no doubt resonate with many people who spend way too many waking hours in front of a computer. This one should require very minimal props and be easy to perform.
17. MOB RULES is another skit which was not my idea. It came from a friend of mine who held a general service position and was trying to get a skit together for a Unity Day which could include the chairs of various AA committees. I thought the whole mafia thing was a great idea and fleshed it out. It turned out the people in her area didn't want to do it, so we did! It went over very well. This is admittedly not my favorite skit, but it does have a lot of good lines in it and useful information. Obviously if someone was to put this on in another area it would require significant revision. I found a party place online that sold plastic "gangster" hats and that added to the look of the skit.
18. MURDER MYSTERY THEATRE was an idea I got from a friend named Howard I met in General Service. Obviously the characters can be tailored to suit your particular area and function and also the different methods of killing the main character can vary as well. The church where we performed this had a huge screen which we used to project the PowerPoint presentations that accompanied the detective's thoughts on how the crime was committed. For instance, when she is describing how John hit Ken over the head with the cash box, I had slides of John loosening the light bulb, Ken opening the fridge, and then John smashing him over the head with the box. It was hilarious! Also at the beginning of the skits I made slides with the characters faces and job description (for example, "Barbara B. as The Registrar") and then at the end made funny slides that summed up what happened to the characters ("John bought his own Harley Road King...with the District's money"). I suppose you could do it without the Powerpoint slides and just have the characters act out what the detective is saying if you had to, but t he visual aspect of having the PowerPoint slides made it very funny. For the prize for the person picked who correctly guessed the name of the killer we gave an AA Service Manual and a copy of The Best of Bill. This skit is lighter on recovery-type content (well, besides the players being officers in the local General Service district and a fewlines) but it was a load of fun and made the event we performed it at (an Agenda Topic Workshop) very memorable and fun.
19. STAR TREK: THE 36 PRINCIPLES was the second recovery skit I ever wrote and was performed at a Summer Assembly in 2001and was a rip-roaring success! I was really torn because I wanted the actors to kinda look like their characters but couldn't think of how to pull it off. I mean, those Star Trek costumes are expensive! In hindsight, I don't think it's that important that they look like Kirk and Spock and the rest (although if you can do it, more power to ya!). Now, what is definitely important--I might even say essential--is the aforementioned Star Trek Sound Effects Cd and a copy of the original theme music without the voiceover on it. When the skit started and the audience heard the familiar sound of the doors opening and closing (even though there really was no door) they were hooked. I did the voice of Scotty and I did such a terrible Scottish accent that I actually added a line where Kirk says "And work on that accent." The climax of the skit was where I had made a cardboard cutout of a human figure and glued gold tinsel on it and when the delegate "beamed in"(in sync with the transporter sound effect) she wiggled it and the crowd erupted! This was was a load of fun, but was a lot of work with lots of props, timing challenges with the sound effects, and a huge cast.
20. STAR WARS EPISODE ZERO was the very first recovery skit I ever wrote and actually is the template for many subsequent ones. Familiar characters are recovering alcoholics, they spout funny lines at each other, have conflict, and hopefully convey some AA principle while they do it all. I made little masks for all the characters which were attatched to sticks that they held up over their face as they read their lines. I'm a little embarassed to admit it, but Darth Vader's breath sounds, Chewbacca's growling, R2D2's squeals, and other sound effects came from my then three-year old daughter's Star Wars book that had the little buttons you push that makes sounds. I just miked it up and it worked great. At the beginning of the skit it is absolutely essential you have the Star Wars theme (preferrably preceeded by the 20th Century Fox Fanfare). Fortunately I had a toy version of the Millenium Falcon from 1977 which elicited much laughter especially when the Sign Technician carried it out with the sign that said "Millenium Falcon...Not Actual Size".
PICTURE: STAR WARS CAST IN VACAVILLE
21. THE COMMITTEE INSIDE BOB’S HEADwas a true joy to put on. All of the characters had signs around their necks so the audience could easily connect words and charcters. Also, at the last minute I added some intro music over the main titles (printed on posterboard and carried in front of the audience by the highly trained sign technician) featuring the song "Brain Damage" by Pink Floyd that has the apropos line :"the lunatic is in my head."
PICTURE: THE COMMITTEE IN VACAVILLE
22. SERVICE ROCKS BY THE FESTERING RESENTMENTSis actually a singing duo consisting of my wife and I. We have performed in many cities in
23.THE INTERVIEWis a simple skit that should require just a portable shredder as a prop. Hopefully it will get some giggles when we put it on.
24. THE RESENTMENT ZONE is yet another skit I've written that has not yet been performed. I wanted to write something that leaned more toward the serious side, but still had humor. It just hasn't fit into any of the functions in our area yet. I like the whole Malibu Barbie thing.
25. THE SPONSORING GAME was put on at a Sponsorship Funshop (as opposed to workshop, get it?) my home group put on a few years ago. It was a lot of fun especially the part I played, RoboSponsor, during the "commercial".
PICTURES: DEACON BLEEDING/FRAN NEWBIE SET ROBOSPONSOR
26. THE TIME MACHINE is a nice little skit that contrives to bring the co-founders of AA to the present day. It was fun when we did it at my home group's 70th AA birthday celebration.
27.THE TRI-LEGACY LEAGUE OF AA SUPERHEROES VS. THE MENACING MEETING KILLERSis a rather silly but fun little piece which should be a load of laughs when it is performed. Much will depend on the narrator really adding gusto and zeal to the reading and having the actors act out what is being said should be hilarious. The circle triangle shield will have the familiar logo of AA split into three parts, symbolically put together when the three heroes fight together.
28. THE VERY VIBRANT VIGNETTES was an attempt to inject some humor into the whole Agenda Topic process. They were all done by just three actors (although it would work and be more inclusive to get a bunch of different people to play the parts) and worked very well. The Monday Night Footdragging thing is a little less than hilarious because at the time Monday Night Football actually had Dennis Miller and Dan Fouts on it, not John Madden. I changed the names, but it needs more work. The Michael Jackson reference is, in light of recent events, unfortunate and I might change that as well. Although it was pretty funny to watch me try to dance like MJ. When we did the VVV, we broke it down into three parts and did two then had like a speaker or something, did two more, had lunch, like that. It was a lot of fun.
29. THE TWELVE TRADITIONS PLAYis the one that has criss-crossed the country and been performed countless times. I was fortunate to see it at a Unity Day in
30. “YOU’RE AN ALCOHOLIC, CHARLIE BROWN!” for some reason was one of the hardest for me to finish. I had written about half the script and didn't like it so I started over and it flowed much better the second time around. This can be performed without much props, but since the characters are so well-known I really wanted to have some sort of visual to link them to the comic strips and cartoons. Much like the Carnivores Anonymous props, I painted the pictures of the characters on posterboard and put string on them to hang around the actor's necks. I made the psychiatrist booth out of cardboard and it was a nice way to set the mood when people saw the familair "The doctor is in" sign. I made a posterboard football for Lucy to hold when she returns at the end of the skit. It was held on by a little velcro piece which was painted blue to match her dress. The music is essential in this one. It sets the tone at the beginning with the nostalgic Peanuts theme and then throughout the skit I softly played the jazzy music from the cartoons in the background. I also got to stick in a plug for my favorite form of 12th step work, the Corrections Correspondence Service thanks to Schroeder.