Two UF students have created Just Kidding, a sketch comedy group based on poking fun at what they know: the theater community.
"We make fun of musical theater a lot because we’ve kind of grown up doing that. It’s things we see," said Lauren Killer, the 21-year-old co-founder and a UF theatre senior. "If we see a silly or bad performance we are inspired to write a sketch about it."
The group is made up of undergraduate and graduate UF students. Just Kidding will be performing at the Hippodrome State Theatre for the second year in a row Dec. 11 and 12 at 11 p.m. Tickets can be purchased through justkiddingcomedy.com and are available for about $7.
The group will perform in the cinema space of the Hippodrome. Killer and Chaz May, a 20-year-old musical theater junior and co-founder of Just Kidding, discovered this as the perfect space within their budget.
"It’s this cool little black box theater that a lot of people don’t really know about," Killer said.
The show will include pre-recorded sketches that will be shown via projector as well as live sketches. It will feature two recurring sketches from last year with seven actors, eight including Killer’s dog, she joked.
"Lauren and I started our sketches last year and we were like, ‘Let’s do a show, let’s rent out the Hippodrome,’ and then we just kind of picked a couple people that were also in the theater building that we have worked with in the past," May said.
One of the recurring sketches includes a character May created. His character premiered last year as a crazy community theater director named Richard E. Flannigan. The "E" stands for Elaine. In last year’s performance, Richard E. Flannigan put on an age-inverted gender-bended version of Annie. This year, they decided his character would put on a show he wrote himself.
"I grew up in a community theater and I know people like this so that’s kind of what sparked that for us. Last year we did a sketch about a family taking their Christmas photos and that was pretty much based on our families," May recalled.
Although the group is still new to the scene, founded in 2014, Just Kidding is pursuing an online presence with its YouTube channel. Even though they only have what Killer said is "like four" subscribers, they know they need a presence to break into comedy.
The group had technical difficulties last year during filming, so this year they have planned the performance to be live-streamed so people can watch it from their computers. The final product will be uploaded straight to YouTube, Killer said.
"If you know me and you know Chaz, and you know who we are together, you know people are like, ‘Oh Lauren and Chaz they’re goofing off together again,’" Killer said. "We make a bit out of almost anything. We kind of realized we could turn our friendship into a comedy show."
Both May and Killer are looking to pursue a career in comedy, and referenced their favorite comedians, Tina Fey and Fred Armisen. "Tina Fey is my business model," Killer laughed.
"I think this show comes from a place of joy, it comes from us just having fun that we want to share with other people," Killer said. "We want to make people happy, we want people to laugh, we want people to feel good. That’s really what we want."
Just Kidding is a sketch comedy group based on poking fun on what they know best: theater. The group will perform at 11 p.m. Dec. 11 and 12 at the Hippodrome State Theatre, 25 SE Second Place.
