By Paige Miller, Features Editor
Merciful class member Zander Shores is a co-head writer for this year’s Friday Night Live (FNL). But the role didn’t come overnight.
Shores became involved with FNL during the fall of 2017 when he heard about the opportunity through faculty members and the event’s creator, Nick Martinez. Shores, a media communication major, always had a love for sketch comedy and was excited to help find show ideas, write them and then see them live in action.
As a senior, Shores is able to look back at his time with Friday Night Live and relish all the memories and experiences it brought him. He thrives off crowd reaction and says his favorite memory has been performing weekend updates, a segment that features news anchors who make jokes about Asbury students and faculty.
Throughout his time with FNL, Shores has learned to grow as a writer, as he had to come up with creative content and write quickly. He learned what working “to the wire” looks like as he often had to ditch ideas and create new sketches just 10 days before performances.
According to Shores, students have learned from past semesters to be very timely, and they’ve fine-tuned FNL into a science while still asking themselves, “What can we do season by season to improve?” Shores has watched FNL become an efficient comedic performance and an Asbury tradition.
However, when Friday Night Live first began there were issues of all sorts. “It was difficult to get things moving the first few seasons; people were fighting for control over the show, and people even had political arguments,” said Shores. Regardless, FNL has grown into a professional production for students and faculty to enjoy.
Shores hopes to see quality comedy that’s on-topic and not watered down continue after his graduation. He encourages future FNL staff to stretch the lines — and themselves — to see what they can produce.
Shores encourages whomever may fill his position to “look back at the basic theory of comedy and find how you can make the show better.”
But perhaps more importantly, Shores encourages his successor to get to know his or her staff. “Find where your writer’s strengths are,” he said. “People will always have different strategies, but it’s important that you learn to work with them.”
As graduation is around the corner and students look toward a new school year, FNL has some hiring to do between now and fall 2019.