Matt Garnaas (l) and Dave Nelsen (r) of The Midnite Show performed every Saturday at midnight at ComedySportz Milwaukee
Since 2001, Milwaukee has been home to a unique, uncensored improvisational comedy troupe called The Midnite Show. Performing every Saturday at midnight, the troupe’s venue is ComedySportz Milwaukee, 420 S. First St. This week, Off the Cuff interviewed core cast members Matt Garnaas and Dave Nelsen to learn more about the troupe’s history and the art of making dirty funny.
Tell me about the troupe’s origins.
DN: There used to be the Dead Alewives. That was in the ’90s. That was Dan Harmon, Rob Schrab, Sean McKenna, Peter Alberts, Bo Johnson and Mondy Carter. When the Alewives went away, there was a hole that needed to be filled, so it was brought up in a ComedySportz company meeting, “Why don’t we do an 18-and-over show?” As I recall, the first five people in The Midnite Show were Joe Cortese, Tim Higgins, Eric Price, Dylan Bolin and Bill Bartel. The early shows had more of a ComedySportz format. They would play ComedySportz games, like What Are You Doing?
MG: And then just take dirty suggestions. That was the original concept: to be a ComedySportz show that allowed vulgar suggestion. But of course even then ComedySportz was like, “That’s really not the brand. We want to make sure it’s not confused.”
That’s interesting. So the long-form format actually came out of the necessity to differentiate?
MG: Yeah, partially. We’ll still change the names of games. So instead of the ComedySportz game Blind Line, we’ll play You Script. I mean, it’s the same thing.
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DN: But Blind Line in a ComedySportz show might go four or five minutes, whereas in a Midnite Show, it’ll go like 20 minutes just because the people who do The Midnite Show have all been doing improv for like 10, 20, 25 years, and we’d rather do a 20-minute Blind Line just because it’s fun. I think that’s always been part of the fun of The Midnite Show—not just that people can yell out “dildo,” but that if a scene is going well, we can just keep going. Long-form can be more fulfilling as long as the audience is still laughing.
Tell me more about the cast and how you work together.
MG: We try to have a guest every week, but if the crowd’s smaller, we’ll just keep it the four of us. With the cast we have now, it’s really easy to ebb and flow with each other. We can tell exactly when somebody is going to do a big character or somebody has an idea for a scene—we can just see it in their eyes.
DN: One week it’s like, “Ok, I’m going to be the central character; I’m going to be in the whole 20-minute scene.” The next week, I’ll pop in for two minutes then I’ll exit. And that’s fine.
Describe the style of the show.
MG: Schlong form. [laughs]
DN: We came up with that a couple of years ago because it’s a combination of “short form” and “long form.”
MG: And it’s so perfectly suggestive.
DN: If you enjoy short form, you’ll like us. If you enjoy long form, you’ll like us. If you enjoy being dirty, you’ll like us. Schlongform.
Visit ComedySportz Milwaukee (420 S. First St.) any Saturday night to see The Midnite Show in action. Tickets are $5, cash only, or free to those with a military ID. To learn more, visit the Midnite Show on Facebook.
