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March 17, 2006
The Friday Five with: Michael Delaney of The SWARM
By: Justin Purnell
With The Swarm getting back together for a single show Saturday night (7:30 at UCBT), we sat down with another famous Irishman, the group's own, Michael Delaney. We talked about The Swarm and its history, and spoke nothing of his Irish heritage. Sorry, but you've got to understand that The Swarm is awesome.
1. Can you talk about how this show and your last show since the end of "Slow Waltz" have come together?
We wanted to have a proper farewell show when Slow Waltz oficially closed last year. So the LA crew all came to NYC for the finale. Since then, we've seized upon the opportunity to play together anytime enough of us are in town at the same time. We did a special show over Christmas when most of us were in town. I don't see the Swarm as "broken up" as much as merely seperated. If enough of us live in the same town together I imagine we'd begin another run.
2. Can you define the Swarm style, or probably more appropriately, the "Slow Waltz Around Rage Mountain" style?
I like to think that we take our time - aggressively. We try to find the humor in our scenes organically and in ways that surprise ourselves. We just really enjoy each others company and share a sensibility of the kind of things we do and don't want to do. Once you find the sense of ensemble the collective sort of takes over anyway.
3. Did you notice any differences in "the Californians'" performance style at your last show?
Not at all. It was like riding a bicycle getting back together with those fellows.
4. Can you give us a history of where you all came from, and how you initially came together?
We all had a good deal of comedy or performing history behind us from several different areas. Back in 1996-97 we were all taking classes with the UCB who were quite unknown in NYC at the time. The amount of talent in those early classes was remarkable. There were no proper Harold teams at the time. A couple of groups had formed already and it seemed like a good idea to strike while the iron was hot. So Andy Secunda and I sat down with Amy Poehler and drew up a list of 9 people. I had my cluster of people I already knew and really wanted to work with and Andy had his, all of which we were pretty much in agreement about. Then Amy thought we needed one more strong player which wound up being Sean Conroy. None of us knew Sean very well personally, (unlike the rest of the cast) we had only seen his work. Sean loves to point out to me that he was the last one picked for the team as if it were a schoolyard baseball game. But if we had not chosen Sean the Swarm probably wouldn't have become as successful as it did. Like most comedy groups one or two people don't work out for whatever reason and we ended up with 7 for the long haul.
5. Where did you get the name "The Swarm?"
When we first got together there were 9 of us which is a lot of bodies. Amy was our director and she had us doing a technique where we would edit scenes by swarming in and deconstructing the location and then transitioning to a new scene. So that name eventually stuck. Our working title was Phag Dance for quite a while until we settled on a premanent name. Phag Dance just seemed innapropriate for some reason.
Posted by The Apiary at March 17, 2006 3:55 PM
Comments
When are the ECNY Awards this year?
Posted by: Shana at March 18, 2006 2:12 PM