Sketching Their Future
Things were looking up for the comedy team of Kravits & Jones. In 1999, the duo won a spot in the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colo., the HBO-sponsored retreat held each year to honor comedyâs big names and showcase new ones. Kravits & Jones fell heavily in the latter category--two unknown actors from New York with agents but not much else, who suddenly found themselves performing their sketch comedy show âMaking Facesâ to ski-weekend audiences composed of television executives, managers and comedy stars like Martin Short and Ben Stiller. They did their best bits--âSaving Private Ryan: The Musicalâ and âUnpin My Heart,â a love duet sung by two heartsick professional wrestlers.
By the festivalâs end, Kravits & Jones won a jury prize, and people were comparing their act to an earlier comedy team, Mike Nichols and Elaine May. This was typical of industry hyperbole (and not necessarily good hyperbole, since the reference might be lost on many in the TV business). But Kravits & Jonesâ comic timing was undeniably good; they cut an amusing image onstage (Kravits is 5 foot 4 and balding, while Jones is stocky, with thick curly hair); and their sketches didnât pander--as evidenced in âWaiting for Waiting for Godot,â in which Kravits & Jones play two actors waiting to hear if theyâve been cast in âWaiting for Godot.â
Today, Kravits & Jones have gone the way of a lot of sketch comedy teams who try to make the transition from stage to television--theyâve split up. Not officially, of course (they would still love to work together and recently did a show at the HBO/Warner Bros. Workspace in Hollywood). But these days, while Joel Jones, 40, is doing what actors must do to get by--day player work in movies, going on commercial auditions--Jason Kravits, 33, has become a regular on an acclaimed drama, ABCâs âThe Practice,â where he plays the nebbishy-looking, ultra-competitive Assistant Dist. Atty. Richard Bay.
Over breakfast recently, it seemed somewhat symbolic that Kravitsâ cell phone rang several times while Jones, his hands otherwise free, ate his food. Indeed, it is difficult not to see Jonesâ glass as half-empty (there he is, holding a spoon to his mouth at an audition for a Kelloggâs commercial) and Kravitsâ as more than half-full (there he is on a hit show, featured in yet another dramatic courtroom scene opposite Dylan McDermott and having sexual tension with Lara Flynn Boyle, who plays his boss, Dist. Atty. Helen Gamble.)
âItâs hard in this business in general not to compare yourself with other people. And if youâre partners, Iâm sure thatâs harder,â said Kravits of the natural tendency for actors to mark their success in terms of the other guy. âBut again, weâve always been very supportive of each other. And in the long run, that might sustain us as a duo.â
Kravits, raised in Maryland, and Jones, from Agoura, met in 1994 through an ex-girlfriend of Kravits and later formed Kravits & Jones in New York, after the two worked together in a larger sketch group called Rumble in the Red Room. After putting up their show âMaking Faces with Kravits & Jonesâ in a cabaret and getting reviewed, they eventually came to Los Angeles to showcase for Aspen and promptly landed a spot in the festival. It all seemed to happen in a pleasing blur.
What transpired after the festival was more indicative of how the comedy business works, particularly for sketch teams. Fresh from Aspen, Kravits & Jones decamped to Los Angeles for what they call the âcouch and bottled water tourâ--meetings with development executives at studios and networks about bringing their comedy to television. They were not only unknowns--anathema in a climate where networks want stars fronting their sitcoms--they didnât really have an ironclad pitch.
âEvery place we went they would say the same thing,â said Jones. He affected the voice of an earnest executive: â âNo oneâs probably going to ask you this, but, um, âWhat do you want to do?â â
âThe smart answer, if we were prepared, would have been [to say], âWell, we have this or that or the other thing,â â Kravits added.
For a time, they scrambled to come up with this or that or the other thing--with, in other words, viable sitcom ideas. What if they were a jingle-writing team? The offspring of a Vegas duo who inherit their fathersâ act? What if they were two hacky comedians touring the country and affecting peopleâs lives--a version of âTouched by an Angel,â only âTouched by a Comicâ instead?
They did not pitch a sketch comedy show. âSketch,â says Kravits, was ânot a good word to most of the places we went.â While nearly every broadcast network has a sketch comedy show in development--including NBC, which has ordered six episodes of a show called âThe Downer Channelâ for a potential midseason or summer run--network bosses are still uncomfortable with the format in prime time. The comedy of sketch teams--edgy and topical in a way that can make advertisers nervous--is deemed better-suited for alternative or late-night programming. Besides, with no-names in a cast, how do you generate interest?
To NBC, âThe Downer Channelâ is promotable mainly because Steve Martin is attached as executive producer, which may or may not mean anything to viewers. Robert Morton, another of the showâs executive producers, thinks âThe Downer Channelâ will have what failed sketch shows lack--a point of view.
âWhat was great about âSaturday Night Liveâ was, [executive producer] Lorne Michaels had a point of view in the beginning. And for the last 30 years heâs nurtured that point of view. The [cast] names have changed, the writers have changed, but thereâs still a solid point of view,â he said.
The last high-profile prime-time sketch show, ABCâs âThe Dana Carvey Showâ in 1996, was a flop, though the network has since scored a modest, low-cost hit with âWhose Line Is It Anyway?,â featuring comedian Drew Carey in an improv setting. There is also âHype,â the WBâs attempt at prime-time sketch (albeit with a cast more in keeping with the networkâs emphasis on youthful good looks than purist sketch experience).
So Far, Sketch Hasnât Worked in Prime Time
The WB, UPN, Fox and ABC all have sketch in development. Ellen DeGeneresâ sketch series for CBS was scrapped, and the comedian is now developing a more conventional sitcom.
âSketch is traditionally too alternative [for prime time],â said Julie Pernworth, vice president of comedy development at CBS. âUntil somebody develops the prototypical example of it working. Then there will be a slew of copycats.â
Four years ago, when the Upright Citizens Brigade, a sketch group with a cult following in New York, was pitching itself to TV executives, âwe were told not to ever say the word âsketch,â â said Matt Besser, a UCB member. The troupe landed a series on the cable network Comedy Central. It generated good reviews and a little notoriety and then was canceled after three years.
Since then the group has been repackaging itself to the TV industry, and Besser says âsketchâ is still a dirty word. âWe have four ideas, but the bottom line of all the ideas is, âDo you think the four of us are funny?â It seems we have fans at every network, but they all say, âWe donât know what to do with you.â â
Like Kravits & Jones, the UCB has seen the industry chase one of its members--Amy Poehler, who drew heavy interest from NBC for a role in âThe Michael Richards Showâ--over the group as a whole. Besser credits Poehler with turning the offer down and thus keeping the group together. âBut a year from now, I donât know that weâd stay together,â he said.
As it happened, Kravits--and not Kravits & Jones--got the big break first. All along, both understood that they were a team more for packaging reasons than creative ones. âNot to take anything away from his talent, but Jason has a look,â Jones said. âIâm a mutt.â
Kravits was working as a day player on a movie called âMonkeyboneâ when he got called to audition for a lawyer part on âThe Practice.â He was still living in New York and had to borrow a suit from the filmâs wardrobe department--and borrow it again when he got a call-back.
âI wouldnât have gotten the audition if he didnât write âshort,â â Kravits said, referring to the note from âThe Practiceâsâ creator-executive producer, David E. Kelley, that a smallish actor be cast in the role of the Napoleonic assistant D.A. âIf he had said, âWe need a lawyer,â everybody would have sent in everybody,â says Kravits. âBut he said he needed a short lawyer, so that automatically cuts out everybody over 5-5.â
Kravits signed on for two episodes--a commitment that grew as Kelley kept feeding him plot lines, energized by Kravitsâ performance as the competitive, insecure assistant D.A. By the time the current season of âThe Practiceâ began, Kravitsâ name was on the opening credits and he was guaranteed at least 17 episodes of work.
At breakfast, Jones listened to Kravits talk about life on a hit series. The ups and the downs. This week, Kravits is featured in a People magazine profile. Jones recently put up a one-man show and got called back for a lead role on a Nickelodeon show.
âHeâs got a very busy schedule now,â Jones said of his partner. He betrayed a hint of envy--but just a hint, still waiting for his Godot.
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