On any given Wednesday night, Bengal’s Lair is jam-packed with students. The space is usually occupied by students and faculty studying between classes and sipping on Starbucks drinks, but tonight, everyone is gathered for a different purpose.
Every week, seniors Clint Cannon, Drew Kohler and Jake Wallach, juniors Kyle Gunby and Drew Derstine and sophomore Josh Ejnes turn Memorial Union into a place where students can take a break from their hectic schedules. They are the improv group Comedy Wars.
It’s not uncommon during a typical Comedy Wars show to hear odd exclamations such as “Don’t you dare churn that butter,” or see Kohler jump haphazardly onto Cannon’s shoulders.
“It’s completely different when you’re up there. Like, you don’t care what happens even if it’s kind of weird,” Wallach said. “You’re just in the zone.”
In the four years Cannon has been at MU, the group has never missed a show. Even when their usual performance spot was closed last year during a snow day, the group still arranged an off-campus performance. They just hated the idea of missing a show.
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Cannon, Gunby and Derstine got their start in comedy in high school.
All three went to Parkway South High School in the St. Louis area, where they joined their high school improv group, 5FD. After meeting in that group, comedy has brought them closer over the years.
“Improv has to be honest to maintain some level of integrity,” Gunby said. “I believe the same is true in our friendship.”
Many of the members of Comedy Wars are also involved with MU Improv, of which Wallach is president. With practices for MU Improv four times a week and another weekly practice for Comedy Wars, Cannon said spending so much time together “builds a family pretty quick.”
Cannon is the unanimous “dad” of the Comedy Wars family. He names Wallach as the group’s “mom,” Kohler as the “crazy uncle” and Gunby as the “uncle that’s never there, since he’s very involved and busy.”
Ejnes and Derstine are referred to as the twins because of their “budding bromance.”
“We’re just like a really tight-knit group of people,“ Cannon said. “When you’re doing comedy, you, first of all, build up a lot of inside jokes very quickly. … You’re a little bit more vulnerable of an art form. We poke fun at each other and it’s a good setting to formulate a family bond.”
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Clint Cannon likes to make people laugh.
“(Comedy is) the only thing that completely de-stresses me,” Cannon said. “I feed off the audience and my teammates and just act and be silly.”
When Cannon came to college, he started performing in MU Improv, the open, no-audition comedy group on campus. Eventually, he was led to Comedy Wars.
He first auditioned for the team in September of his freshman year and has been a “Comedy Warrior” ever since.
When Cannon joined the team, he became friends with former Comedy Warrior Dan Sheehan, who is now a stand-up comedian in Chicago.
“His only focus was on comedy, and so having someone around me that was not afraid to just go for it gave me the confidence to make that plan for myself,” Cannon said.
As the current captain of Comedy Wars, Cannon is in charge of practices and shows.
In the future, Cannon said he wants to write sketch comedies and films. He did not always want to be a comedian — he first wanted to write fiction novels. But as his involvement with Comedy Wars continued, he said, he gradually moved toward comedy as a career.
“The longer I do it, the less I want to quit,” Cannon said.
After he graduates in the spring with degrees in English and communications, Cannon will move to Chicago and continue studying improv.
“I think too much about everything, and in improv you can’t, so it helps,” Cannon said. “Overthinking gets me really stressed out, and when I come to practice it all washes away, and so I try to be spontaneous.”
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As a freshman, Ejnes was nervous to audition last year. Unlike Cannon, Gunby and Derstine, who knew each other from high school, Ejnes didn’t know anybody. He also had no past experience with comedy.
Ejnes’ decision to try his luck as a Comedy Warrior came after he became involved with MU Improv.
“I came here, went to the first MU Improv practice and did my first scene that got a lot of laughs,” Ejnes said. “There was always other stuff that I liked doing, but…that was the first thing I had ever done where it just felt right.”
Originally from Rhode Island, Ejnes moved halfway across the country to pursue a degree in journalism. But after he auditioned and joined the Comedy Wars family, he had a change of heart.
He changed his major from journalism to English and decided to dedicate his college experience to focusing on comedy.
By pursuing creative writing, Ejnes plans to write and perform for television and movies in the future, while possibly doing some stand-up on the side.
“My parents were all about it, which I was kind of surprised about because I’m so far away from home, and I came here for journalism,” Ejnes said. “I just felt like it’s something I’m supposed to do, I don’t really see anything else. Even if it doesn’t go well, I’m still going to do it, even if it means me living on the streets.”
The audition process for Comedy Wars is extensive, lasting six months with only two or three new members joining in the end.
Ejnes met Derstine while they were both going through the lengthy audition process. Through the group, they formed their “bromance.”
“Derstine sees the world in a very different way than anybody else,” Ejnes said. “I think I see the world closer to his way than most, so we try to keep each other on this planet.”
After his career in high school improv, Derstine took a break from comedy his freshman year of college. He found other organizations to occupy his time, like rushing Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, but he still felt like he was missing something.
When he started his sophomore year, Destine decided to join MU Improv and try out for Comedy Wars.
“I like the fact that I don’t have a whole lot of fear standing in front of a large group of people and spitting out complete ridiculousness,” Derstine said. “That doesn’t really bother me. You know a lot of people who are afraid of that, and we’re not.”
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Perhaps the members of Comedy Wars will become some of the greats they take inspiration from today, such as Robin Williams and Steve Martin. Gunby said that no matter where he ends up, he just wants to be happy.
“Eventually we’re going to have to graduate and I think some of us will get ‘real jobs,’” Gunby said. “Some of us will get real jobs, some of us might not. But my sort of great hope is that no matter where I end up, I’ll still do this, because otherwise I just know that I won’t be happy.”