Several juniors have restarted York’s Sketch Comedy Club and are hoping to perform at York’s Fine Arts Week and possibly at Sketch Fest in Chicago.

Last year, there was no Sketch Comedy Club at York. This year, juniors Adam Montesantos, Connor Markuson and Calvin Shollenberger have decided to bring it back with the force it once had.

“We’re new at this,” said Montesantos. “We’ve got a lot of freshman and we’re all still learning. It’s an uphill battle this year, but we’ll get better. Hopefully.”

Being a sketch comedy club at a school, it is necessary to stay appropriate. This is a truth the members realize and will have to remember throughout the year.

“We’re gonna try and kind of avoid the ‘raunchiness’,” said Markuson, who is also helping to restart the club. “[We are going to] stay a little more school appropriate than we have in the past, and just really censor ourselves more than we have before.”

This responsibility to stay appropriate is understood by both the members and the club sponsor.

“I had heard that they had had some issues on being appropriate, and that’s the hard thing about comedy,” said Mr. Green, social studies teacher. “It’s very easy to go an inappropriate route, but I think they’ve learned their lesson from last time. I think they’re more mature now. We’ve also said that if you’re going to perform anything publically, that sketch has to run through Mr. McGuire to get the okay and to make sure we don’t cross any lines. I think if we do it the right way we’ll be alright.”

Mr. Green, understanding the need to stay appropriate and the possible complications of being this club’s sponsor, still decided to help make sketch comedy a reality at York with the belief that comedy can help the students.

“I’ve always been a big fan of comedy, growing up watching standup and funny shows like “The Office”, and things like that,” said Mr. Green. “Comedy helps people get through hard times or different situations that they encounter here at school. If things are awkward for them it’s kind of a way to get that energy out. It’s always been good.”

The absence of a sponsor last year was a big obstacle that made it really difficult for the club to exist. However, many of the students of the old sketch comedy club still met up.

“The sketch comedy club never really stopped,” said Montesantos. “We just had most of it graduate and we’ve just been doing it at the library, but that’s been pretty sporadic. Last year we wanted to get back here but we couldn’t find a sponsor. This year we found Mr. Green because he’s the new guy… we needed a teacher that wasn’t involved.”

Now that the club has a sponsor and is an official York club, they are meeting and planning activities for the year. The club two years ago would meet weekly and perform at Fine Arts Week, which is the goal of this year’s club.

“We try to write scenes, which is a struggle because it’s easier to be funny on the spot than it is while you’re planning it. We do a lot of improv… because improv is really the stepping stone to a lot of things comedy,” said Montesantos. “Our big goal is to perform at Sketchfest in Chicago; it’s probably not gonna happen though. So our goal is just to have a really good Fine Arts Week show, which we can do. And just, you know, maybe get a show somewhere else outside of York at some point.”

This year’s leaders are all hoping to create an atmosphere similar to that of prior years’ clubs and have so far been successful.

“In past years it was a really good community,” said Shollenberger. “It was really supportive, and the leaders two years ago were really nice. I think all together, it’s just a family.”