AJ Patton and Timmy Wood want you to get hype. The best way to do that? Running around on stage.
“It’s high energy, very physical comedy. There’s a lot of sweat,” says Wood.
Patton and Wood met at New York City’s Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) Theatre in 2012, and after seeing each other’s work, they decided they shared similar comedic styles. “We did a lot of little shows here and there to develop together,” says Patton. And Hype Squad was born.
“There was always the idea of physicality. We just fleshed it out,” says Wood. Hype Squad takes the stage as if they were performing a halftime show at a sporting event. “We’re big sports fans, in a weird way,” says Wood. He points to the aspects of sporting events (other than, well, the sport itself). “I like the showmanship more than the sports. I love the dumb games they play. And when they shoot out T-shirts,” he says. Patton says that the duo use every inch of the stage every time they perform. “We don’t want to waste any time,” he says.
Wood and Patton admit that a lot of comedians commit to their work — they just commit a little bit more. “We’re a lot more like music videos, and stunts you’d see on YouTube videos, just not the gross-out gags,” says Wood. “We take a simple idea and have the most fun with it that we can, even if it gets weird,” adds Patton.
The guys don’t worry about performing before or after another set, they just want to get the crowd, you know, hype. “They’re warmed up for the rest of the night,” says Wood. “Oh, and everyone gets a high five.” Take note Charleston.
Wood says that he will be “really sad” if someone in the audience has to ask for a high five after the performance. He will gladly give you one though, as long as it’s within a 24-hour period. Comedy has rules, man.
Wood and Patton actually know Fucking Identical Twins from UCB. “They’re hilarious,” says Patton. We’d have to agree.
“It’s a really crude musical,”say the guys that make up Fucking Identical Twins, Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson. They sent us a preview of the show and they’re right: it’s very crude. It’s also pretty damn funny. “We’re slimy old businessmen,” says Sharp. The guys play businessmen who meet, realize they’re identical twins (if the last names didn’t tip you off, Sharp and Jackson aren’t actually twins), and set off on a journey to get their parents back together. The show’s preview calls it “The Parent Trap if it happened to horrible, disgusting people.” Ah.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this performance is the singing: Sharp and Jackson can really wail. They can also hit punch lines, act out different personalities, and get all slapstick gag-worthy up in the audience’s face. We laughed — hard — at the preview of the show, and just talking to the guys over the phone. “The show is written by homosexuals, so you can’t get offended,” they say. “Most of it comes from a place of being really absurd,” Jackson adds.
And absurd it is. We won’t tell you too much of what happens, but we will say that when embarking on their journey to set their parents back up, they run into a few obstacles. Quite simply, their father is gay, and their mother’s vagina has fallen off. Yes, actually. See what we mean by absurd?
“It’s like those Disney adventures that are remade and star Lindsay Lohan, and they have adults ruin them,” says Sharp.
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