Saturday, June 26, 2010

In the Moment with Frank Caeti

Frank Caeti is an alumnus of the famed sketch comedy/improv theatre The Second City Chicago. He grew up in the Chicago suburb of Bloomingdale, but spent his formative years in Colorado. During his career at the Second City, he performed at the Flamingo Las Vegas, wrote and performed two original revues for the Second City etc., and toured for over two years where he went everywhere from Vienna, Austria to Beloit, Wisconsin. During his tenure in the touring company, Frank performed twice at The Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina and had the honor of entertaining the US Troops for a USO tour in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Germany. Caeti joined the cast of MADtv during the eleventh season as a featured cast member and was moved up to repertory cast member the following season. Frank has appeared in the films Bad Meat, UP, Michigan, The Lake House and Stranger than Fiction. He has also done multiple television commercials, and has worked as a sports correspondent for PGA Tour Sunday and Smash Tennis. Frank has since returned twice to the Piccolo Spoleto Festival with the shows Bills and Caeti and FrankenMatt present: Pilgrimage, where both shows received rave reviews.


You grew up in the Chicago suburbs as well as in Colorado. How much time did you spend in Colorado and where?

I moved to Colorado when I was twelve. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, and then moved to Summit County. My folks had divorced a few years prior to that and my dad moved there for a job. He’s originally from Chicago, and my mom is originally from Long Island. I lived in Silverthorne for a year before moving to the Broomfield area. I went to junior high school there and graduated from Standley Lake High School. Then I went to Colorado State University, and after graduation I moved back to Chicago. I was always a little bit of a displaced Chicagoan because I still had lots of family in Chicago and would visit often. My father also refused to drive four wheel drive cars. He would still look very Italian and always drive Cadillacs.

What was your first exposure to improv comedy?

I think I saw something at Second City when I was a kid. I remember seeing something in college. I think it was Denver Comedy Sports, which I think is a different name now. That was the first time I saw short form improv, and it looked fantastically fun.

Where did you study improv when you returned to Chicago?


I almost immediately enrolled in classes at Second City. After completing the year long conservatory program, I studied at IO, which was formerly the Improv Olympic. I also played in Comedy Sports in Chicago. Out in LA, I just recently studied at Upright’s Citizens Brigade. That has been a lot of fun as well.

What were some of the highlights of your career with Second City?

The whole thing was a highlight, It’s exactly what I wanted to do. It was my dream, and I loved it. There were some fantastic places I traveled to when I was with the touring company. I lived in Las Vegas and performed on the Vegas strip, and then the resident company in Chicago. I was actually fortunate enough to get hired by MadTV from Second City. I was still working in Chicago, so there was no lag time. They saw the show, I auditioned, and then I got hired. My whole experience with Second City was a highlight. It’s by far the most prestigious organization that I have been a part of and feel very fortunate to have done so.

How did Second City prepare you for your work on MadTV?

I guess it shaped my comic sensibility in a lot of ways. It gave me lots of stage and performance time. I actually took some characters I did at Second City and did them at Mad. In many ways it kind of ill prepared me as well because at Second City you typically don’t do impressions. For Mad TV and Saturday Night Live auditions, you are always required to do impressions. That was new for me. My impressions for my first round of MadTV auditions in 2005, were Ted Knight, Billy Corrigan, and Jar Jar Binks. Not the most relevant group.

Second City gave me all the tools I need as an actor. It shaped my point of view as a writer, and what I do creatively.

You participated in Second City's 50th Anniversary at the end of last year. What was your favorite memory from that experience?

There were so many. It was a blur. It was like being at your own wedding. It was pretty intense. I was terrified, and I get really, really star struck. One of my favorite scenes in the touring company was called Maya. It originally starred Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, Dave Razowsky, Fran Adams, and Scott Allman. It was a highlight to see that scene performed by the original cast live. That was pretty amazing. The whole event was fantastic. It was humbling to say the least.

How did you and Matt Craig decide to start FrankenMatt ?

Matt and I have had a good relationship as friends, colleagues, and ensemble members for a long time at Second City. We toured together for a year with SC Tour Co and wrote two shows for the Chicago Resident Company. It really wasn’t a decision but a matter of when we were going to be in the same city and have the time to do so. We always knew we enjoyed each other’s work and had a great chemistry between the two of us. He moved to LA in 2007, and I was here part time in 2005, but then full time in 2006, so we just hit the ground running. We were interested in working with each other and it happened shortly after he moved to LA.

How much of FrankenMatt's sketches start as improvisation?

A 100%. We created a long form called Pilgrimage which centered around the narrative of a road trip. Almost all of our sketch material was originally improvised in Pilgrimage. We would often video tape our improv shows, anything that struck us as sketch worthy we’d watch the tape back or jot down some notes. If it wasn’t initially improvised, we might explain an idea to each other, and then improvise the sketch through in front of an auidience. We’d do a series of sketch preview shows, where we try out material in front of the audience because we’re too lazy to write it down and have any certainty that something is funny. Often you learn, hey that worked as an improv, but not as a sketch. We would never write a sketch out and learn the lines. Actually, no scripts exist for FrankenMatt so when we go to festivals, we kind of drive the tech people nuts because we can’t give them a script. We can only give them cue lines for when to pull the lights, play music, etc. Within that we keep it improvisational, moment to moment. It’s really fun since it’s just the two of us. We really count on each other.

What's next for FrankenMatt?

In addition to performing weekly at Second City in L.A., we just got back from the Piccolo Spoleto festival in Charleston, SC. It went well. We premiered our new improv show called Portmanteau there. It’s a new form. Portmanteau is a single word made up of two words like “frenemy” or “spork”. We’re also performing some shows for the Hollywood Fringe Festival. We’ll perform at the Twin Cities Improv Festival this month, and then head to Austin for the Out of Bounds Improv Festival in September. We’re staying busy, but hopefully more to come.