Vegan ham, emotionally-disturbed cats, speedo-clad security guards, and archival film reels detailing how to tell a joke (hint: penis). Sound like a cough-syrup induced nightmare? Maybe. But for the comedians of Rutgers Night Live, it’s a dream realized, written, and performed.
Rutgers Night Live is a completely student written, directed, and produced comedy show. Comprised of live sketches and a few pre-recorded videos, the show takes place once a semester at the Cabaret Theatre on Douglass. While they don’t have the established weekly time slot or a following as big as their inspiration, Saturday Night Live, they do have a captive audience. They recently sold out all of their fall shows; it was only their fifth-ever production.
The work that goes into one episode of SNL is full-time: from Monday to Friday, the writers, cast, crew, producers and showrunners work from morning to night, aiming for the right rhythm to strike comedy gold with every sketch. Most of the cast members and writers were once standup comedians or improv performers at renowned institutions like the Upright Citizens Brigade in LA and New York or the Second City in Chicago. Rutgers Night Live produces the same kind of live show on a college student’s schedule. There are no full-time writers, no professionals, no faculty. Just talent.
“We had no professor show us the ropes, no alum to teach us how to run a production. Everything was done in a way we saw fit, and a great comic style has been born out of it,” says founder Dominick Nero, an SAS senior studying English,with a concentration in film and creative writing.
Dom is a representation of the kind of quality and originality that makes RNL so exciting to watch. He penned some of the sketches that made the last show so hilarious and refreshingly positive. Although our generation is notorious for our sense of cynicism, sarcasm, and a general sense of ennui, Rutgers Night Live presents material that is entertaining without relying solely on parody or referential nitpicking.
One such sketch is “Ice Cream Social,” written by Dom’s fellow founding member, Stephen Hilger. The sketch pitted nerds against cool kids in an epic dance battle, all to win over the cool girls at their 8th grade ice cream social dance. The battle, however, didn’t showcase the stereotypical awkward lack of rhythm of teenage boys. Instead, the boys danced in a hilarious competition that was more of “who can appear to enjoy this dance more” rather than “look at these freaks who can’t dance!”
While most of these ideas come from one writer, RNL’s rare kind of comedy is born of collaboration, says Hilger: “We had a ton written for the last show. Eventually, there comes a day where we all sit in a room, read every submitted sketch, and then vote on the ten we want to do. It’s become a pretty democratic process.”
Other cast members agree with Hilger’s take on the group’s writing process. Kelsey Flanigan, one of only three female members of the ensemble, thinks that this kind of collaborative work will “bring us to an even more entertaining show for everyone next time around. This past show was fantastic, but there weren’t many lead female roles. I think that everyone’s enthusiasm to write together will bring even more to the table next time, and we’ll see comedy that focuses on how funny the perspective of females is, too.”
In spite of the passion of RNL’s current cast, the future of the show lies in the hands of new members. Most of RNL as we know it will graduate this semester. But they aren’t worried, Hilger says: “Even though most of the group is graduating after this year, I have complete faith in the remaining members to run the group smoothly. I’m also really excited to see new faces in the group. It’s a group I wish existed my freshman year.” Any new member, it seems, will be welcomed into the fever-pitch mix of writing and performing just as warmly as their predecessors.
New, present, or old, the Rutgers Night Live cast will undoubtedly make you laugh. But their passion for creating a show that showcases the humor of both their writers and their audience is nothing to laugh about.
Crissy Milazzo is a contributing writer for the Rutgers Review.