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San Francisco Examiner Feature (2002)
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'Lobster' in the pot
By Rachel Howard
From The Examiner.
Friday, May 3, 2002
Originally published from The Examiner, 2002.
(c) 2002, All rights reserved.
Killing My Lobster may go by a wacky name, but these days it's a tightly produced, highly professional sketch comedy troupe. Still, co-founder Marc Vogl remembers the cruder early days.
"The chorus is basically stepping back and forth and snapping their fingers," he says of a musical finale from 1997. "But they're in a Russian space station, so there's not a lot of room for a can-can line."
"We do a lot of bizarre s---," he offers in a futile attempt at explaining the unexplainable. "I haven't even told you about the babies."
The Russian space station and the babies (we can only speculate) and the "Scratch N' Smurf" song and much else besides return in all their raw, outrageous glory Saturday night when KML, as the troupe is popularly known, celebrates its fifth anniversary with a fund-raising party. Expect a slice of something absurd from each of the group's 15 previous shows, as well as appearances from former cast members, an all-star KML Orchestra, a sneak-peek of KML behind-the-scenes documentary, and a benefit auction.
"We've matriculated to first grade after five years," says Vogl, who along with fellow Lobsters Erin Bradley, Paul Charney, Bill Donoghue and Jon Wolanske, formed the troupe from the Brown University sketch team Out of Bounds.
The group, 10 performers strong, now boasts a film-production arm, a professional choreographer and a loyal audience. And though all of the anniversary party's proceeds will go toward producing KML's next shows, the company is now looking into prospect of buying its own performance space.
It looks like the Lobsters are becoming something of a San Francisco comedic institution, and that's surprising given the eclectic nature of the sketches.
"We don't have a unified comic vision," says Abby Paige, who debuted with KML in 1999. "So that requires that when things don't make you laugh you can appreciate that it might make someone else."
That hit-or-miss appeal may be the key to the group's growing popularity.
"We have confidence that it's all funny," Vogl says. "But it's more all over the map than a lot of comedy groups are, because we're bigger than most comedy groups are."
"One person likes the slapstick, another the musical numbers, or the Hamster in Court TV - there's something for everybody."
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