Nothing is sketchy about the dedication of the Shenanigans Comedy Club at UCLA’s Sketch team.
The team is one of four creative departments that make up the Shenanigans Comedy Club, along with the Digital Sketch, Improv and Standup departments. The Sketch team leads the productions of the club’s sketches from writing to performing, with different themed shows every other Friday, said Andy Liu, the president of Shenanigans and the head of the Sketch department. The team recently recruited new members and performed its last two shows of the spring 2025 quarter, with the final performance being a sendoff for its graduating members.
“Writing a new sketch, honestly, it’s just things that are funny in your everyday life.” Liu, a rising third-year psychobiology student, said. “And usually, our process for writing these sketches is ‘What is a situation that we may encounter and then how do we build from there? What is the joke? And how do we expand both sides from there?’”
The themes of its shows originate from the Sketch team’s desire to reach out to as many different groups as possible, keeping in mind that comedy needs to be both funny and respectful toward members of the audience, Liu said. Shenanigans has centered shows around its collaborations with student groups, such as its sex ed-themed show with Sexperts.
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The Sketch team meets every Thursday and performs shows with the entirety of the Shenanigans Club as well as putting on individual shows, said Ivan Karp, an alumnus who graduated in 2025. Karp, who served as the Shenanigans vice president and the Sketch team’s co-head for the 2024-2025 school year, said members often come to team meetings with pitches where they can collaborate with other group members.
“Usually, we’ll pick the best one (pitch) together and start writing it as a group and then usually let the person finish it themselves,” Karp said. “I think it’s important to have time to collaborate with others, and then time to just work on it yourself, figure out some of the more technical aspects that maybe don’t need consulting.”
The Sketch department collaborates with the Digital Sketch team, Karp said. The Digital Sketch section produces sketches that are put on YouTube and often records live sketches for the Sketch department, said Hayden Longwell, the Digital Sketch team’s co-head.
Digital Sketch pitches come from ideas that people are passionate about and are completed in different ways, going from a spontaneous pitch to a detailed idea, Longwell, a rising third-year English student, said. For example, Digital Sketch has held an event in the past called “Digital All Nighter,” where all sketches are written in a short amount of time, Longwell added. Digital Sketch’s videos are often shown at Laughden, Shenanigans’s end-of-quarter show. Laughden, which typically happens on Friday of week nine, usually showcases work from Digital Sketch and live Sketch, while sometimes featuring other departments.
“We collab and do fun things for the club. We all do the shows together, like Laughden. … Or sometimes, digital will help record live sketches. There’s things we (Digital Sketch) do, but a lot of it is member overlap and scripts going back and forth because they would be better for that form of sketch medium,” Longwell said.
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Overall, the Sketch department keeps everyone’s perspective in mind when executing sketches, trying to keep it lighthearted, Liu said. Karp said he uses humor to bring up contradictions within society and evoke thoughts by pointing things out in a ridiculous way. Longwell said Shenanigans as a whole is a great place for people who are interested in comedy, as the club allows students to be better writers and provides members with workshops. She added that she hopes people take pride in the work they have accomplished when creating sketches and bond with new people. Karp said he also wishes that performers are able to gain experience from participating in the club’s sketches.
“Mostly, I just hope they have fun and get to improve their acting, their writing, things like that. And just to feel part of the general club community as well. We try to make that pretty important,” Karp said.
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