Please Don't Call It a Skit

By Josh Hornbeck

Skit. As a director and playwright, there is no other word that causes me to involuntarily react with such revulsion as that loathsome four-letter word. Skit. It’s demeaning, it’s diminutive. It implies that the production of theatre consists entirely of throwing a few actors onto a raised platform and giving them a handful of lines to speak. It completely dismisses the monumental effort it takes to prepare a theatrical experience – the playwright crafting a script, the director sculpting the action, the hours of rehearsal necessary for actors for fully embody their characters… and that doesn’t even take into consideration the use of lighting and sound or sets and costumes. Skit. A character in Aaron Sorkin’s short-lived television series “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” put it this way: “Skits are when the football players dress up as cheerleaders and think it’s wit." (1) Skit. I imagine that every time someone uses the word, an artist’s soul is extinguished, leaving an empty and hollow shell in its place.

From September of 2004 until June of 2009, I was the writer and director of the University Players from Seattle Pacific University. With a cast of six actors and a production stage manager, each year we would take two half-hour plays into Christian high schools, church youth groups, and Sunday morning worship services. Our productions for high school audiences each took a different social issue (body image, bullying, sex) and explored the universal struggles associated with each issue in a highly theatrical manner. In churches, we presented parables that worked on a variety of levels for and utilized everything from fairy tales and circus acts to musical theatre. The audience response was consistently enthusiastic, but without fail, at each and every venue, someone would inevitably toss out the “s-word.” “The University Players have a skit they’d like to share with us today,” a pastor or chapel coordinator might say. As we greeted our audience after the performance, comments such as “That was such a wonderful skit” or “Cool skit” would hang over our heads like a little black raincloud of mediocrity.

During my tenure with the University Players, I worked diligently to raise the bar for excellence in our art. The University Players had been around in one form or another since 1964 and while they may have started touring full one-act plays to schools and churches, over time they began to fall back on a loose collection of sketches which could be strung together into a thirty minute production. One of my express purposes in returning to direct the Players was to return the group to its narrative roots, bringing something more than just a simple “skit” to the schools and churches we served.

Traditionally, the Players toured with no set pieces or backdrop so that they would be able to perform in a variety of spaces. I decided to use a simple black backdrop and a few wooden blocks, along with some very specific props to help set the scene.(2) Costumes in previous years tended to be matching performance outfits, while I made certain that our costumes were intentionally specific to each character. Originally, sound was used sparingly – a few effects and maybe some ambient noise. I scored each of our plays with music that helped set the tone and mood for each scene. And because of this added focus on the technical elements of theatre, I very deliberately changed some of the terminology surrounding the University Players. We were often referred to as an acting troupe or a drama team. But we were no longer merely a few actors putting on a show, we had become a touring theatre troupe.

I know, it may seem a bit pretentious – touring theatre troupe – but I was proud of the work we were doing. We had raised the bar and were producing meaningful art that was having a real impact on our audiences. That’s why it stung every time someone referred to our work as “skits.” I know the comments were well-intentioned. I understand that no one meant to offend or belittle us. But the fact remains that the diminutive connotations associated with the word skit shows that deep down, our audiences didn’t think of the plays as much more than a simple diversion, a way for the pastor to get out of preparing their sermon. Did they enjoy the productions? Yes. Were they touched? Sometimes deeply. But they had been trained to see the theatrical arts as less important than a sermon, as a less effective way to communicate spiritual truth than a lecture or the reading of scripture.

And that’s why they call it a skit.

The second section of this essay will further explore the church's perception of theatre as frivolity, examining the historical relationship between the church and the theatre.

(1)"Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," Season 1, Episode 6: "The Wrap Party," Story by Melissa Myers and Amy Turner, Teleplay by Aaron Sorkin, Directed by David Semel
(2)To be fair, the former director of Players had also decided to use a backdrop for the high school show. This was, however, not the normal way of doing things.

(Posted 09/28/2009)