About the Show
People thought we were crazy to create a live sketch comedy show that could go from package to plate in under two hours. Nonetheless, Fries on the Side was born and celebrates the beginning of its fifth full season! How does it all come together? The secret is in the preparation. The Fries writing staff works - separately and together - to create a slate of over a dozen sketches each week. The only requirements: that they be fresh, daring, and funny.
Two hours before the show begins, the writers cast their pieces based on a combination of the Main Cast members and any other actors who attend. A quick tech rehearsal irons out the biggest bugs - there isn't even time to memorize lines -- and the rest is all up to the talents and skills of the performers and crew. The scripts are loaded into the two teleprompters on the either side of the stage and, with only two hours of rehearsal under our belts, the next performance on Fries on the Side begins for a live audience!
In addition to our writing staff, Fries on the Side openly accepts written sketch submission through our website. Those sketches are written and evaluated by the writers. Sometimes sketches are rejected for one reason or another, but the freelance script often does find its way up on stage!
The unsung heroes of Fries on the Side are the crew. Without our producer, stage manager, lights, sound and teleprompter, we'd be little more than muttering people in a dark room. As the show ramps up each week, those folks are straining to work out lighting and sound cues, figuring out the staging for each piece, and finalizing the formatting on the scripts in the teleprompters. By the way, if those prompters go down during the show -- and it does happen -- Fries suddenly becomes improvisational theater!
Even as preparations and rehearsal stops as the doors are opened and the audience is seated, the actors and crew still scramble backstage. Costuming is being thrown together on the fly, last minute line changes are dashed out and sometime roles are exchanged even as the show is beginning. And as everyone prepares to jump on stage, they all are hoping not to hear those three little words that bring fear to every member of the Fries on the Side cast: "Prompters are down!"