A More Perfect (Re)Union: The State Return to the Stage

Just four days after Barack Obama's inauguration, another emblem of national unity and pride will cause the masses to assemble: For the first time in 14 years, all 11 members of the iconic, pioneering sketch comedy group the State will reunite onstage to perform more than an hour's worth of new material at San Francisco's Sketchfest. Up to a million viewers watched the State's surreal, absurdist sketches for four seasons on MTV between 1993 and 1995. The group then failed to win a CBS contract and splintered into sub-projects for more than a decade. Now, two intimate State reunion shows on January 24th have sold out in minutes, faster than any event in SF Sketchfest's eight-year history, say organizers of the 12,000 attendee, three-week festival. Such fan rapacity is more evidence of the group's enormous legacy, which has seeded dozens of projects including Reno 911! and Stella, and films like Role Models and Wet Hot American Summer.

Rolling Stone sat down with five cast members — Michael Ian Black, Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Ken Marino and David Wain — to talk fistfights, ball smoke, trucker speed and more State projects.

The State formed at New York University when you were all in college and many of you now live in L.A. What's this reunion doing in San Francisco?

David Wain: We didn't realize that Rolling Stone had moved to New York. That's why we set this thing up in San Francisco. We wanted to be wherever Rolling Stone was. That didn't really work out for us.

Thomas Lennon: It's weird, because we sort of operate like a band, by which I mean, a sort of dysfunctional band; by which I mean — we fight a lot. But once we're up onstage, and once we're all together, you remember why we were such a cohesive and fun group to be in. And I'm curious for people to see us all old and wrinkled and sad.

Kerri Kenney-Silver: Personally, I thought at least half of us would be dead by now.

Wain: Shockingly, everyone in the group is unbelievably busy. By last count seven of us have directed feature films. It wasn't a question of getting anyone to sign on, it was a question of coordinating our availability.

If sketch comedy is a lot like being in a band, and there's 11 of you, what does that make you? Afrobeat?

Lennon: I was thinking we're probably the equivalent of something like the Pogues in terms of how difficult it is to get us all onstage together. You can get most of us together but they'll always be a sort of Shane MacGowan who will knock somebody's teeth out or push them down the stairs. Of course, there's been a couple of fistfights in the State. There have been a couple of punches thrown.