Austin sketch group Stag Comedy’s roster reads like a who’s-who of the local entertainment landscape; with various members involved in improv, radio, local music, stand up and the Alamo’s Master Pancake programming, it’s kind of crazy that the group has time to produce several full-length sketch shows annually—including this past spring’s The Sweaty Merengue.

But not only do they have the time, they’ve got the skills, drawing crowds to huge rooms like the Alamo Ritz and earning spots on national comedy fest lineups. Their shows mix staged scenes with video sketches, flowing effortlessly between absurd sight gags and thoughtful slow burners that earn standing O's from sold-out audiences.

We talked with Stag members Mac Blake (who's also appearing at OOB with group Hot Property and solo on the Velveeta Room's stand up stage), Andrew Rosas and Ximena Estrada about friendly competition, John Lithgow and knowing your audience.

Stag Comedy (Mac Blake, Andrew Rosas, Ximena Estrada, Joe Parsons, David Jara and Dave Youmans) performs at Out of Bounds this Saturday, September 3rd at 9:30 pm at The Hideout.

Will your Out of Bounds show be all sketch?

Mac: It is sketch, and it is kind of a best-of from our recent Drafthouse run, The Sweaty Merengue.

Andrew: [laughs] I forgot it was called that for a second.

M: We did the same set at the Milwaukee Comedy Festival earlier in the month in July.

Has Stag performed at many festivals?

M: We did ATX Sketch Fest last year, but it didn’t occur to us to apply to Out of Bounds. We made a concerted effort this year to apply to a bunch of festivals; we did this thing in Boston called Geek Week—Joe Parsons used to do stuff up at Improv Boston—and we did Milwaukee, we applied to Toronto. The Milwaukee show was fun, it was a good crowd.

Ximena: Boston was really fun.

M: We were driving around in Boston, near Harvard, and for some fucking reason John Lithgow walks out in front of our car.

A: Yeah but John Lithgow looking good—like, three-piece suit and everything.

M: We freaked the fuck out.

X: I think we were all at the same time like, “Get a load of that guy, John Lithgow-looking—hey, that is John Lithgow!”

A: We were the first car at the stoplight and he walked in front of the car, I guarantee he just heard this muffed like, “OHMYGODLITHGOW!”

M: He didn’t look, though. What a dick.

How often do you produce new shows?

X: Twice a year. We’re trying to do it more.

A: We try to do two shows a year, and the way it works is we’ll write for a couple months, then we’ll produce for a couple months We have a voting process on the sketches, and we cull the cream of the crop and produce those. The video stuff, we’ll shoot those and edit those, and usually mixed in with that month is rehearsals.

M: We’re trying to streamline it a little bit, because we’re doing all this work for the Drafthouse shows. We overwrite like crazy, too, we have this giant pool of sketches when it comes time to do a show and we can only do like nine of them. For the last show, we actually filmed like twelve or eleven things and only used eight, because that’s all we had time for.

We’re actually doing a show in November at ColdTowne called The Jerk Parade, and that will be some of the stuff we didn’t use last time and then some new stuff.

A: Yeah, we end up with almost three times as much stuff, it seems so inefficient.

X: We’re too productive, we’re trying to not be so productive. Everybody does their work, they do it on time, we show up and have all this stuff to read—come on, slack off, people.

M: It’s a good problem to have, but we could be doing shows more often. And that’s the fun part.

A: One of the things that I really like about this group and I think is necessary in any sort of healthy, creative work environment, is a sense of friendly competition. We’ve all got the competition in us—

M: Like Daniel Plainview.

A: Exactly. So when Mac comes in with a brilliant script, then next week I’ve got to destroy that script, I’ve got to write something funny, I’ve got to do it. But you know, we’re all working towards the same goal, which is to put on an awesome show.

M: Yeah, and this last show went off pretty smooth. The show before that was kind of a nightmare.

A: It was up until one second before the show went on. We were like, “Well, alright,” then we went on and it was amazing. But this last show at the Drafthouse over the summer was eerily smooth sailing. I felt like something was going to be horrible, like, “Oh, by the way, the doors are locked from the outside and nobody can get out.” Things ran a little too smooth…

X: Isn’t that every show, though? Personally, I’ll always feel like something’s going to fuck up. There’s new fears every time.

How did you get involved with the Alamo?

X: It’s because of Joe [Parsons, of Master Pancake] that we started there. The fact that we sell out is big for a sketch show, too, especially because it’s not normally a venue for sketch comedy.

M: It is a cool venue, and it’s really nice because not a lot of groups have access to it. And it’s nice to be able to make a little something back, to get reimbursed, because we do spend money on making these shows.

A: It’s nice to just break even.

X: I never expect that, I always forget that there can be money involved.

M: And of course any money we make, we’ll definitely blow on a costume seconds later.

X: Like a bear suit.

A: Always a fucking bear suit, we’re up to here on bear suits. We’re tripping over them.

M: We love dressing up.

A few of you have been taking improv classes—how are you liking that?

M: I like it. I find myself doing more of that than anything else these days. It’s cool playing with other people, but it’s still really tough. But fun!

A: I’ve definitely noticed there’s a difference between people, in audiences, who are used to seeing improv—especially if it’s a place and a time and a theater that’s known for improv—and then you bring sketch there, there’s a different energy to sketch than there is to improv.

M: A prime example is, if a crowd’s hating it, you can switch it up in improv. With sketch, you’ve just got to put your head down.

A: Especially if it’s a slow burn.

M: For example, we did this show at FronteraFest last year called “Mi Casa es su Teatro”—

X: You know, I’m really glad that we did that, because it’s nice to have an example of how things can go.

A: That was so awful yet weirdly fun in this fatalistic sort of, damn-the-torpedoes, full speed ahead way.

M: It was a show where you performed in people’s houses, and most of them were one-act plays or monologues. And we’re like a dirty sketch group that’s like, ‘How many blowjobs did you get today, Dad?’ ‘Fuck.’ And so, at first, the audience laughed, but then it tapered off. We made some reference to characters being racist—

A: There was an audible gasp.

M: The rest of the show there were people just kind of shooting hate at us.

X: One of the sketches is completely based on lewd gestures; you name it, we were doing it.

A: They liked that at first, there was a lot of nervous laughter.

M: But by the end [gives a disapproving look].

A: It seemed like we got an audience who had never heard of the concept of irony.

M: We have a lot of clean stuff, but I think we chose by what’s funny and not by the audience.

X: That’s the lesson we learned, know your audience.

Stag Comedy (Mac Blake, Andrew Rosas, Ximena Estrada, Joe Parsons, David Jara and Dave Youmans) performs at Out of Bounds this Saturday, September 3rd at 9:30 pm at The Hideout.