For almost a year now, the Pilot Light has hosted dead president impersonators, TED Talk frauds and personified animals (costumes included) on Monday nights.
These are all the products of the QED Comedy Laboratory, a creative venture formed by Matthew Chadourne in August 2015. A long time stand-up comedian, Chadourne was tired of the cookie-cutter format of most comedy shows.
“People would come up with themed shows or ideas for crazy shows that didn’t fit in stand-up format, and there was really no place for that,” Chadourne said. “I thought it would be nice to do something that would be something new that would spur writing and spur creativity.”
Sean Simoneau, a UT journalism alumnus, believed in Chadourne’s mission and joined the shows last fall.
“This was originally Matt’s idea, but as it progressed it kind of opened up so we all run shows on different nights,” Simoneau said. “It’s basically somebody has a special connection to a subject or theme, and they make a show on that.”
Due to QED’s founding premise of constant originality, Chadourne tries to never repeat shows. This goal has been successful with the help of the 10-12 core comedians like Simoneau that contribute to the shows.
“I try to solicit ideas from people because I ran out of ideas a long time ago,” Chadourne said.
Simoneau’s favorite shows are ones which involve more preparation and writing the week before. He recalled his TED Talk presentation on the future of biotechnology.
“I made slides of people who had cameras all in their heads, and it just got progressively more ridiculous,” Simoneau said. “Those moments are really great when people have something unexpected.”
QED frequently utilizes multimedia in their shows which Simoneau believes “gives a nice visual element that you wouldn’t normally have at a comedy show.”
Chadourne also described the importance of incorporating multimedia elements in QED’s performances.
“We do one called ‘The Slideshow’ that we’ve done a couple times now,” Chadourne said. “That’s where people make up a story based off eight random slides we show them on stage.”
Alternately, Shane Rhyne, another regular show contributor, prefers the shows where the comedians are put on the spot.
“I like the shows where we kind of go completely insane,” Rhyne said. “One of my favorite shows was called ‘It’s Debatable,’ which was a Matt creation where basically we just showed up with no prep and he just handed us an index card.”
The comedians were paired up to debate in true collegiate style: two minutes each to present their case followed by one minute each for rebuttal.
“My favorite was, and I was in this one so I might be biased, I’m winning this debate versus I’m winning this debate,” Chadourne said. “Then my opponent versus my opponent’s opponent was one of the best ones. You had to argue for your opponent in the debate.”
Other debate topics included Tuesday versus Thursday, sitting versus standing, Addams Family versus the Munsters and what’s the best vehicle in Star Wars (excluding the Millennium Falcon, of course).
Costumed impersonations have also been favorites of the comedians. In addition to performing as their dead president of choice, the comedians also performed a show they called “Tiger Style” where they did comedy in character as an animal.
“What was fun about those was you get to see people play in their minds a little bit to create this character and go with it,” Rhyne, who played Chester A. Arthur and an antisocial butterfly, said. “Those were always fun to do and play with.”
An exception to their credo of originality is their storytelling show called “Trust Fall.” The key point of the show is that before a comedian can perform, he or she must do a trust fall into the audience.
“The initial concept with the trust fall was that you would tell stories that you wouldn’t necessarily tell somewhere else,” Chadourne said. “You would trust the audience to be accepting of your story, and the audience would trust you to be open about what you were saying.”
However, this relationship of trust has also been broken, or perhaps only bent, a few times. The contributors recalled their most infamous stunt, the “Blue Umbrella Tour.”
“We made a fake walking tour, and then we didn’t tell anybody it was fake,” Chadourne said. “There were five or six of us and 20 people at the start.”
Rhyne said the tourists dropped off as the tour progressed and Chadourne described the Knoxville bowling wars.
“Ah the great bowling battle of 1946,” Chadourne said. “People were killing each other in Market Square with bowling pins. Only one orangutan was killed in that battle though.”
Despite how a show is received by the audience, the comedians value the opportunity to experiment with new sets and hone their skills.
“If this show doesn’t work this week, next week it’s a whole other show and you come back and start all over again,” Chadourne said.
