Let your vote count. Then laugh at it.
TV networks have been providing live coverage of presidential election nights for decades. In recent years, it’s also become common for late-night comedy shows to do live broadcasts as the ballots are still being counted.
Stephen Colbert will be doing a live election night special for Showtime. On Comedy Central, both “The Daily Show” and “@midnight” are going live on Nov. 8.
And Hartford’s homegrown comedy troupe Sea Tea Improv will be watching the ballot count live as well, in its new Sea Tea Comedy Theater at 15 Asylum St.
The “Election Night Special” begins at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday night — half an hour after Connecticut polling places have closed. The show is the brainchild of Sea Tea company member Patrick McGuire.
“The idea is that we have comedy going on as the results come in,” McGuire said in a phone interview last week. “We’ve been writing sketches, but we also want to be adaptable as the election information comes in. The election has been so crazy that even on election day we expect to be reacting to unexpected things as they happen.”
Some of McGuire’s ideas include “mini-elections” during the show, polling the audience on their favorite candy or “which way the toilet paper rolls should go in the rest rooms.”
He has recently found himself drawn to material based on current events.
“As I’ve been moving from improv to stand-up, I realized that my ideas are largely about politics.” He’s as intrigued by how the news is presented as by what’s in it. “My inspirations are closer to ‘The Daily Show’ than ‘Saturday Night Live’,” he says. That doesn’t mean that the Sea Tea special won’t contain impersonations of Clinton or Trump, however.
“Doing short-form improv over the past year, we would get Trump suggestions consistently, though that’s toned down a bit lately.”
“The thing that’s funny to me about politics is the difference between what politicians say and what they mean. It’s simultaneously about making yourself look big and making yourself look normal. There’s also this: Who gets hurt by this process? The thing that’s funny is that this is deadly serious.”
McGuire will be joined by fellow Sea Tea members Allie Rivera, Alison Jalbert, Michael Shelby, Nate Gagnon, Terri D’Arcangelo, Zach Collins, Laura Manasewich, Julia Pistell and Erica Willis. “I tried to include people who are engaged in politics,” McGuire says. “I know this turns their brains on.”
THE SEA TEA ELECTION NIGHT SPECIAL counts the laughs 8:30 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Sea Tea Comedy Theater, 15 Asylum St., Hartford. Tickets are $10. 860-578-4TEA, seateaimprov.com.
