Interview: Bob Beshere, A.J. Schraeder, & Rankin Willard of CRAFT STORE SITCOM: THE PLAY

About 959 plays from 33 countries were submitted for the yearly Italian competition known as the Carlo Annoni Playwriting Prize. Currently one of the top eleven finalists and in the running to win when the award is announced this September is CRAFT STORE SITCOM: THE PLAY. It is a 6-episode sitcom presented before a live theatre audience. Over the course of two hours, we see store employees navigate 6 crafting holidays and more than a little hijinx.

After countless hours performing improv comedy together at The Idiot Box Comedy Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, Bob Beshere, A.J. Schraeder, and Rankin Willard all decided to turn their skills to a slightly more permanent art form. They set out to create a unique live theatre experience that drew on their combined strengths. Pulling talent from the local improv comedy scene, a sneak preview performance of the first episode of CRAFT STORE SITCOM: THE PLAY will premiere as part of the North Carolina Comedy Festival at The Idiot Box Comedy Club in downtown Greensboro on Friday, September 3rd at 7pm. I had the great pleasure of interviewing the three of them about all of this and more.

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Would you mind telling us about Craft Store Sitcom: The Play?

BB: It is a collaboration between the three of us. Rankin approached us with the idea of a play that acted like a TV sitcom. We started kind of throwing ideas around and landed on Craft Store Sitcom, a workplace sitcom with about six episodes or kind of large mini acts. Like you would be binging an entire season of a workplace sitcom, but it's live on stage. So it goes through like the normal kind of seasonal arc of a sitcom. That's the gist of it.

This project marks the first theatrical collaboration between the three of you. What has it been like going about with it?
RW: When we first started, it seemed like a very natural progression of our friendship and working together. AJ and Bob had done sketch comedy together for many years and the three of us were doing improv comedy together. So we thought, "Why don't we work on something with just the three of us and something that has a little more lasting to it?". But then it became a little more complicated when a couple of months into the project, we couldn't get together in person anymore. At that point, I felt like we had to decide whether to put it on the shelf or to buckle down and try to make something that we were really proud of. I think through a difficult but fun process, we ended up with something that I'm really happy with.

How are things going with it?

AS: So, thus far, we haven't actually had a full production of it yet. But we were able to submit it to various contests and festivals. We are already a finalist for one of the writing contests we submitted to. Our kind of pilot episode of the play was accepted in the North Carolina Comedy Festival. So we're gearing up for that kind of mini production of it. So far, all the responses have been very positive. We did a couple of kinds of cold reads over Zoom as we were working through the script, and got a lot of good feedback from a diverse group of actors that we had involved. It really helped inform the writing process.

BB: Yeah. The people that have read it or encountered it in some way, shape or form have been very positive. The feedback's been really nice.

As the whole world is slowly coming out of this pandemic, what does it mean to each of you to have this production presented to an in-person audience?
BB: Everything (laughs). Being able to actually get it up on its fett and get that kind of live feedback, we've been looking for that this whole time, because we all have backgrounds in live theater. We all know that you don't really get that full circle of an experience with it until you see it performed live, especially when you've been involved in making it. Even just in rehearsals, we've had a couple of rehearsals so far in getting ready for the North Carolina Comedy Festival, that kind of energy alone has been just soul filling. Like you said, coming out of the pandemic after so many months of not having that.

AS: Thematically, the play itself deals a lot with kind of just the small moments in life and the small connections we make with people. People coming into your life and going out, and then having a chance to reconnect with people when they're different. I think we're all experiencing that now as we get a chance to be amongst people again and see how people have changed, but still have those bonds. To be able to see that parallel in the actual world while we're putting this play on is just kind of neat to me to find those things that I didn't even know were kind of in the script that are still reflective of the world.

RW: For me, the original idea being that you're taking an experience of seeing a sitcom performed live. There's not that many sitcoms anymore being taped live, but taking that experience and bringing it to people who wouldn't be able to be part of that. Either in the audience or on stage, most of us won't get to be in a sitcom on television in our lives. But if you could do it in a small theater in your local town, letting that idea finally come true, like the core of the idea, I'm nervous and really excited for that to finally happen.

A.J., you happen to have such extensive experience in sketch comedy. How does it apply to Craft Store Sitcom?
AS: The comedy is there throughout. The idea of shorter scenes, each having a game within the kind of the larger piece, helped us kind of outline everything. Even though there's this larger story happening, each thing needs to have a specific little gimmick to kind of get us through and flesh out the comedy of each moment. So the customers throughout the show, they're all minor characters, but they're big characters. Kind of the same way you would see in a sketch comedy show where you can easily define this hyperbole of a character and see that play out that they have a defining characteristic that they get to go big for their like brief time on stage, but they get to have almost the most fun of anyone when they're on stage.

Bob, you have a doctorate in Shakespearean literature. How does that apply to this project?
BB: I'm good at writing things for a long time. Studying Shakespeare really helped me gain an appreciation for language and the flexibility of it. I see no better use for flexibility of language than in a comedy when so much is about misunderstanding or miscommunication and the kind of hilarity that ensues from those accidents, mistakes, and really low stakes problems. Taking from Shakespearian comedy especially, putting characters in low stakes, problematic scenarios, and seeing how they navigate themselves out of it. Being able to kind of approach that sort of organically and naturally because of my background was a big help.

Rankin, you have a background in visual arts. How does that apply to Craft Store Sitcom?

RW: I definitely thought of a lot of the comedy while we were writing it in visual terms. Like as much as it's a dialogue heavy show, I felt like there needed to be as much visual comedy as possible. We were able to get that across in the script as well. Now that we're doing the production for the comedy festival, I'm doing sets and props and fun stuff like that. This is a much more social project for me and my art is very internal and individual. So I get to hide out in my room and make fake pieces of birthday cake and stuff like that for us to use in the show.

For those who have interest in writing plays themselves, where do you think would be a good place to start?
BB: Read as many as you can. If you've already been involved in the theater and you've read a ton of plays and you like reading plays, just be prepared to ditch your first, second, third, fourth ideas, and settle on something much later in the process.

AS: I think just making a schedule for yourself. Just making it a regular thing where you give yourself homework basically is what I find to be the easiest way to actually get a project done.

RW: I'd say have someone who's committed to reading it when you're done, so you have at least one audience member in your head. There's a lot of people out there who are interested in looking at your art and you shouldn't be afraid to ask people for their opinions because we all have one.

A.J., Bob, Rankin, I thank all of you very much for devoting your time to this interview. It was great getting to talk to each of you.
AS: Likewise.

BB: Thank you, Jeffrey.

RW: Thank you so much! We appreciate it.

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For more information, please visit:
www.craftstoresitcom.com

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