Group brings laughter to living

Four Albuquerque comedians use real-life experiences to create comedy

BY XOCHITL CAMPOS

Meet the Stanleys. The One Night Stanleys — that is.

Nando Fresquez, Alex Knight, Steve Lucero and Joe Carney make up the quartet of improv comedians that have been performing to packed audiences every Saturday night at The Box Performance Space, 1025 Lomas Blvd.

Nando Fresquez, Steve Lucero and Alex Knight perform weekly at The Box Performance Center.

Photo by Javier Zamora

Nando Fresquez, Steve Lucero and Alex Knight are members of The One Night Stanleys.

For members of the One Night Stanleys, humor has the power to enhance any story, Nando Fresquez said.

Last week the group met at the Frontier Restaurant, minus Carney — who no member of the group has seen or heard from in days, to talk about the past weekend’s performance over french fries and milkshakes.

The One Night Stanleys is a name patch-worked to represent four very different people brought together by a desire to laugh and a love for comedy.

Fresquez said the power an improvisational comedian has over the audience is the knowledge that everyone has a sense of humor.

“I don’t necessarily view everything in a humorous light, but I think that the thing that is most interesting about any kind of art or any kind of storytelling is to have some kind of humor in there,” he said. “I really appreciate a sad story or something that is meaningful and then there is a weird humor to it.”

Fresquez said his mission as a comedian is to find humor in ordinary situations that are not always obvious to the untrained eye. But, for an actor improvisational comedy is a fix, he said.

It is not uncommon to use ideas gathered from the day’s events as material for the night’s show, Knight said. It’s as common as eating and breathing, he said.

“I’d say I need it,” Knight said. “It is such a great way to express anything that is going on in your life, and if you don’t do it, you miss it.”

Knight said he was known as a “funny guy” during his high school days at Sandia Prep. Now he works the theater scene of Albuquerque to maintain his image as a starving artist, he said.

“Fries, this is all that I can afford,” he said, looking down at his plate just as Lucero makes off with a large handful of what was to be Knight’s weekly ration.

Dubbed “the genius,” by group members, Lucero is a funny guy by nature, Fresquez said.

After graduating in 2006 from UNM with a degree in Physics, Lucero said he headed back to school in pursuit of a law degree because it sounded “fun.”

“We are all very proud of Steve,” Fresquez said.

“Not as much as my mother,” Lucero said.

Despite their very different personalities and different backgrounds The One Night Stanleys attribute their success to the diverse qualities each member brings to the group, Fresquez said.

Knight said harmony in the group’s performance is created by never negating a member’s initial idea. But to continuously build from it, he said.

“You have to go with it,” Knight said. “I can’t say, ‘that isn’t a rabbit — it’s a toad.’ That kills the whole thing.”

Maintaining continuity has become the credo of The One Night Stanleys, Knight said. Not to mention the key to their success.

But according to Fresquez the group is just following the rules of improv.

“Improv is just making something up on the spot, and much like a conversation, it is something, as you practice it, you become more comfortable with it,” he said. “There are also rules. You don’t want to step on someone else’s toes.”

Lucero said the objective of a performance is to create a temporary oasis from the real world where the audience can feel comfortable with their own emotions.

“How you feel about somebody,” Lucero said. “You do something to somebody and that incident makes you feel mad, sad, happy, glad.”

Knight said the scenario will always be based on a situation people can familiarize themselves with.

“A lot of it is focused on relationship,” Knight said. “A relationship being what is the most interesting about humans and humanity. We just try to do something that people have been through before, like a divorce. But it is going to be an exaggerated, cartoon-y version of it.”

Finding material an audience of all ages can relate to is also the group’s biggest challenge, Knight said.

A connection between a performer and an audience is no easy task, fellow comedian Adrian Wallen said. The quartet’s success is a testament to their skill, he said.

“They are definitely PG-13. It is tough to have solid humor and not resort to a poop or a sex joke,” he said. “That is easy comedy and this type of comedy is really hard because you have to be more creative.”

Wallen has been performing with Knight for five years but knows all members of the group from Gorilla Tango, an Albuquerque club that closed two years ago and moved to Chicago.

Wallen said the relationship of the characters is a reflection of the relationship between the actors. He said the group is able to transform awkward, tragic, or sad situations into something funny for the benefit of the audience.

“They do have some serious topics in some of their scenes but they are comedians,” he said. “They do adjust some of the most serious topics but sometimes people need to laugh about some of those things.”

Written April 12, 2008

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