Friday Night Live (FNL), Asbury’s late night comedy show held every semester, is being held in the BlackBox Theatre this Friday April 19. The show will consist of around two hours of comedic content performed by Asbury students. Tiffany Rutledge, an actress for the show, told The Collegian “Students can expect not to be sitting there for three hours, because we are making it two hours instead, but making every minute count. The theme is sports, and I feel as if every semester that goes by, it just gets better every single time. Every semester, I think to myself ‘Wow, this is the best one yet’ and every semester tops that.”
Reagan Gibbs, co-director of the show, told The Collegian that students should come to the show because “We’ve been around long enough that I feel like it’s a long-standing tradition, and students love FNL. It’s a place where we specifically put it the weekend before finals so that students can come relax, get a laugh and one last happy moment before they die in finals.” Gibbs later stated that her favorite part of being co-director was “Getting to impact both the campus and students involved in FNL. There is so much work that goes into this, working with the internal team of the writers, and organizing the planning of everything. Getting to work with the cast members, getting to know them, teaching them improv and acting.”
Carmen Clemente, the other Co-Director of the show, stated that “What I like most about FNL would probably be the people, and the community it forms. It’s just a bunch of people who want to get together and make jokes, play pretend and just get together and create joy and happiness. I love that part of FNL.” Clemente continued, “I also love the creativity of it all. Just writing sketches, bringing sketches to life, as well as improv. We get to be really creative with improv.” Clemente, a senior who is graduating this month, told The Collegian, “This is my fourth semester being a co-director. First with Gavin Reed, now with Reagan Gibbs, and I love that co-director relationship because you’re not alone. You always have someone to bounce ideas off of, someone to ask ‘hey, what do you think about this?’ I love that dynamic.” Clemente later stated “I say this every semester, I just love the people. I love meeting new people, and working with a new group of individuals when it comes to creating the craft of FNL, it’s always so fun.” Clemente stated that “Students can expect first of all that we’ve got some funny sketches. We’ve got some fun characters that I think people will enjoy. FNL is a time where students can distress before the dreaded finals week. You can expect to leave your burdens at the door, leave those worries at the door, and to have fun for a couple of hours.”
Marcie Hughes, the head writer for the show, told The Collegian “I really like to work with people. I think that especially with script writing, anything theater, film, entertainment wise it’s supposed to be a group effort, it’s supposed to be collaborative. That’s something that I’ve really enjoyed.” Hughes, who has been a writer for the show since fall of 2022, later stated that “This semester’s FNL, especially with the finale, is going to be a little edgier than usual. I’m really excited about these sketches, I think they’re some of the best written sketches we’ve had. I feel like every semester the writers get better and better.” Hughes followed, “This semester feels more balanced… coming from both an Asbury perspective, but also outside of Asbury. We wanted to try and make someone who doesn’t go to Asbury feel equipped to have some good times and some good laughs.”
The show starts at 7:30 in the BlackBox Theatre, with tickets being sold beforehand online. The general admission is $15, however students of the University will only have to pay $10 for tickets, with Faculty and Staff having to pay $12, respectively.
Featured image by Kaity McCracken.