Candy Chan ’17, above, performed in a skit titled “Good PAPS, Bad PAPS” in which she played a “bad” PAPS officer.
Slamming a table onto the ground, Candy Chan ’17, playing a “bad” PAPS officer, exploded into an angry tantrum in last Friday’s Sketchy Comedy Show. The sketch, titled “Good PAPS, Bad PAPS,” featured Rachna Lewis ’19 playing an innocent student being interrogated by a “good” PAPS officer, played by Jared Zuker ’18, and a “bad” PAPS officer, Chan.
“I really liked Candy’s enthusiasm. She really wanted to break stuff. I remember in our first practice she literally pushed over one of the tables, but the table kind of got dented because she didn’t realize how hard she had shoved it over… And I think probably just watching her perform was my favorite part,” said Lewis.
This sketch was featured as one of six skits in the comedy show hosted by Sketchy, a written comedy club co-headed by Jack Lawlor ’17 and Emma Kelley ’17, that took place last Friday evening in the DramaLab classroom. The sketches, which were entirely student written, directed, and performed, parodied many aspects of Andover culture and served as a place for members of the Andover community to relax and laugh.
“I think [the show] provides an outlet for the weirdest side of the campus, the most ridiculous side, the most scum-of-your-subconscious side, and it’s really a place where, all the things you wake up in the night thinking, ‘Oh that was a really weird dream,’ we write that down, and we perform it, and I think it’s really important to have this sort of fun, easy thing that people can go to and forget about school for a little bit and just relax, unwind, and laugh,” said Lawlor.
A skit starring Kelley was modeled off of a YouTube video from 2007 named “Muffins.” Kelley, who played a worker at a bakery called “Cunningham Muffins,” presented a variety of different “flavored” muffins, each parodying a different aspect of Andover culture. The names of the muffins ranged from “‘I hate my life’ Finsta” muffin to “Press the Crosswalk Sign” muffin to “Blood from the Conservatives of Andover” muffin to “Fire Alarm at 3:00 a.m.” muffin.
“I liked how [Kelley] represented some funny jokes at Andover through the muffins. She was very flamboyant throughout the entire act and completely let go and just had a lot of fun, and everyone else in the audience had a lot of fun because of it,” Emma Chatson ’18, an audience member.
Playing Head of School John Palfrey at an Andover All-School Meeting (ASM), Lawlor introduced the next ASM meeting speaker and brought them to the stage. As the applause died down, Kelley and Trevor Lazar ’17, playing the guest speakers, slowly twirled their way onto the stage, dressed in red tights and curly wigs, before breaking into a fast, choreographed dance which featured wild arm swings and a repeated chant of the phrase, “I’m a liberal.”
“[The skit] was a lot about pointing out how Andover speakers are mostly liberal and represent more leftist views, but [Sketchy] did it in a way that was very funny and very outright about it… When the two ‘special guests’ came out, they were dressed in really odd costumes and moving really weirdly, so that caught everyone’s attention,” said Anna Lang ’19, an audience member.
