At this point in his career, Mark Roberts could be sitting on a beach, cocktail in one hand, cigar in the other, and staring off into the abyss, reflecting on what anyone might call an incredible career, having worked as a comedian, then in TV and movies, and also, as a playwright and director.
After all, when you create syndicated television shows, and you were the lead writer and executive producer of one of the most popular ones in the history of network television, you should feel good about taking a breath, and then just exhaling for as long as you want.
But speaking with him over the past couple of weeks, you get the sense that there’s simply always more to do. There will always be another challenge to manage. There will always be another scene of dialogue to develop.
As such, Mark Roberts isn’t slowing down. After having just premiered his newest play, New Country, for the stage at NYC’s famed Cherry Lane Theatre (which was given high praise from basically everyone, including the Times), he’s coming home to C-U for a week to help celebrate the man who jumpstarted his career while attending Urbana High School: Greg Chew.
If you went to Urbana High School while Mr. Chew was teaching there, you knew him to be ever-present and well regarded. Even if you didn’t do theatre, you knew he was one of the “good” teachers, the ones that people wanted to be around. He was an authority figure, but not the kind that made you feel small, or fearful. He treated you like an equal. If you were screwing off, he told you, but he allowed freedoms that many other teachers wouldn’t dare.
On Saturday, Mark Roberts will help host Laugh-a-Palooza, a benefit held by CU Schools Foundation that will help fund an annual scholarship which will be given to a senior at UHS each year to help them pursue post-secondary education in the dramatic arts.
When I heard about it, I thought it’d be a good chance for us to catch up with Mark, see what’s doin’ in his life and what the big idea is for the Greg Chew Theatre Scholarship. After all, while there are many many people who have grown up in town here and have gone on to do big things, very few have spent the kind of time and capital as he has in re-investing in his hometown community.
Smile Politely: You’ve had a very prolific run, and done some pretty high profile things so far in your career, Mark. Yet, you seem kind of ever-present in C-U. Essentially, you haven’t forgotten about it. It’s a broad question, but why do you think that is? Family? Friends? A sense of place?
Mark Roberts: I’m not sure, honestly. I am drawn there, love spending time there and yet, am always glad when it’s time to leave. It’s complicated, my relationship with that town. I want the approval of the people I grew up with and yet at the same time, I resent them for wanting it, for not giving it to me back when I was just a struggling misfit fuck-up, trying to find his way. And when I go back now, it’s different. People are either overly nice to me because of my success or they’re overly hostile to me because of my success and neither is right. I’m just a guy who grew up in Tolono and Urbana, figured out at a young age what I wanted and worked hard to get it. But, the time I spend there now is usually pretty relaxed and pleasant and it will always, in my heart, be my home. And I guess yeah, it provides a sense of place for me. As much as anything can in this life.
SP: Yeah, I think that’s a common feeling about C-U, honestly. I never left, so as I built a small company with my wife, and as it became clear that we were going to have to travel to major cities to shoot photos or to visit the major booking agencies, we’ve kind of been caught in this weird space where we are constantly looking forward to leaving, and then when we are gone, we’re constantly looking forward to coming home and regaining our sense of place. Right now, you are living in NYC, as your newest play New Country has done well. Do you prefer it to LA? To anywhere else?
Roberts: At this particular moment, I prefer anywhere in the world to Los Angeles. And I’m not trying to promote any kind of east coast-west coast pissing match, I just really stopped liking it there. It’s a high-stakes show business town and that makes it largely fear-based, which is a tough way to live and I did it for 24 years. Luckily, most of my television work is in syndication and that allows me to live wherever I want right now and New York felt like an interesting next move. Plus, the thought of packing up and moving across the country terrified me, so I knew I had to do it.
SP: How was the run for New Country at Cherry Lane? I’ve heard it’s being extended, too? It’s a small cap room, not unlike Station Theatre. Do you prefer that type of space to larger rooms?
Roberts: The New Country run was a blast to do. We extended for a week, as that was the only amount of time the space was available. There are serious rumblings about a Chicago production in the Spring, with myself and Sarah Lemp reprising our roles.
I do prefer intimate spaces for theater, certainly as an actor. i think it forces your A-game and demands a level of concentration that can’t be faked. You have to be living every moment in your eyes when you’ve got people sitting on the lids.
SP: A Chicago run would be good, I think. Not to sound like too much of a fanboy, but I really, really liked this one. I’ve enjoyed them all, but some more than others, honestly. Perhaps it’s because of the fact that I work as an agent and promoter, but I felt like it touched on some specific themes that are also relatable to those outside of the entertainment industry. I came in knowing that the NY Times had given it a pretty serious nod by recommending it. Do you pay much attention to that action when it opens? Or even before, while you are writing?
Roberts: I just try and tell the story I want to tell as honestly as I can. I’ve had three plays debut in New York and two of them were New York Times Critics Picks and the third one was absolutely hated by the Times. The nice notices certainly help put butts in the seats, but it doesn’t influence me as far as the work goes. But, I’d be lying if I didn’t say a favorable nod makes the nightly subway ride to the theatre a little more pleasant.
SP: Makes sense, of course — but I still gotta wonder, based on your history, how much that sort of thing factors in to what you do. Can you talk a little bit about the differences or rather, challenges, of writing for something like a popular network sitcom where you can’t even use the word “shit” and a play where you can refer to your character’s junk as being — and I am paraphrasing here — “short, but with the girth of a tuna fish can?”
Roberts: I like both, truly. When I was doing stand-up, I loved the challenge of creating a clean, funny five minutes for The Tonight Show and then going to a club and being able to say “fuck”. It’s just a different process. TV requires a lot of discipline because it’s a life of non-negotiable, expensive deadlines. Theatre is more relaxed and allows a lot more exploration time. TV they are always waiting for you to get the words on the page, so they can build sets, hire guest actors and do whatever else the script requires. A hundred or more people waiting for you. Pressure. Theatre, not so much, because there’s not as much money.
SP: For the record, can you please give me that quote from your character in New Country about the tuna fish can? At the show, it’s worth noting that Larisa Oleynik was sitting behind us, and let out one of the most unadulterated laughs at that line that I’ve heard in some time.
Roberts: “It ain’t that long. Thick as shit, though. Like a tuna can”.
SP: See, that’s gold to me. Most of the time, finding dirty ass humor that isn’t just for show is hard to come by. I think that’s why people appreciate Louis CK so much. He says his piece, and people gasp, but by the time they’ve had a chance to process just how dirty it was, they are nodding their head, in agreement or relating to it. What do you make of a comedian like CK? Do you still take cues from your contemporaries or have you always just written the way you write?
Roberts: I don’t really follow comedians anymore, except for Louis CK and Chris Rock who I think are the Pryor and Carlin of our time. Geniuses. Louie is just fearless. I actually ran into him near The Cherry Lane while New Country was running and got to tell him how much I appreciated his work. My writing is what my writing has always been, which is usually a reaction to something going on or having gone on in my life. I stopped doing stand-up because I started to find that form, that presentational form, very restrictive. I’m a more dialogue driven writer and always have been. I wake up thinking dialogue.
SP: You? Get the fuck outta here! I mean, that much is obvious, and not to gush, but allow me a moment — it’s the absolute glue that holds your plays together. These are simple stories, but the characters interacting and talking as if you were a fly on the wall is what makes them so engaging. But back to stand up, at the Benefit coming up at Mike N Molly’s, how much material do you have? Is it fleshed out yet? Will you hit a few spots in NYC to try it out before you take the stage here in town?
Roberts: I have some little things I’ve been scribbling on, just silliness. I don’t consider myself a stand-up anymore, so I don’t hone, I just show up and wing it. You have a lot more confidence on stage when the outcome has absolutely no effect on your life one way or the other. That’s the only way I’ll dip my toe into stand-up anymore, which is very rare. Years in between. I go to bed at fucking ten o clock and I don’t do blow anymore. Plus, I got way burnt out on comedy clubs. That’s where I learned about the most evil of all of God’s creatures and that is the drunk white woman.
SP: Yeah, I mean, I am still pretty young and been coupled since for more than a decade, but one of my rhetoric professors, the author Jean Thompson, told me, paraphrasing again, “Alcoholics make the worst partners.” Do you ever miss it though? I mean, not just blow, or fast women, and whatever else comes with that — but, you know, the lifestyle. Comedy clubs, casual depraved sex where you can act out any Peter North porn scene you want?
Roberts: I did the road for fifteen years and garnered a few “death bed memories”. But, at a certain point you stop drinking, you stop drugging and you tape your shows, study the tapes, then get up the next morning, work out and write new jokes. The party has to end at some point if you want to get on TV and get out of “the bar business” which is basically what life on the road is. i worked my ass off to get approved by The Tonight Show scouts and then get seven different sets approved for the show. That’s work. Those were the days I drove all over town doing the set five different times in five different clubs. And then you would sit in a bar with comics who had no TV credits, while they bitched and got loaded. An artists life better be one of discipline at some point, otherwise, you ain’t got a prayer. Louie did an episode about a road gig recently. it was brilliant, terrifying and it brought up a lot of bad memories. Like finding a coke-booger in one of your books.
SP: Agreed, but there’s a line somewhere I think. You take a band, like say Aerosmith, who I can’t stand, because I grew up with them in the post-Pump era. They used to kind of slay. They were hopped up on ten different drugs, Steven Tyler was using his lips in more ways than he could count and then — they got clean, wrote in the studio, and then they made a bunch of albums that appealed to soccer moms and suburban hacks. They got huge, sure — but the music sucked. Bill Hicks talked about that a bit, too. The idea of “suckin’ Satan’s pecker” which was essentially, living clean and trying to maintain that edge, and failing. Do you feel like Two and a Half Men was a result of that change in your life in some ways? And, honestly, what do you think of that show? Specifically, your work on it?
Roberts: Well, I don’t subscribe to the mentality that you have to destroy yourself in order to do good work. As a playwright I feel like I’m just hitting my stride and haven’t been as excited about my writing as I am right now. In fact, all of the work I’ve done in every aspect, TV, film, theater, it’s all informed what I’m doing now. I put in my ten-thousand hours and I am firing on all pistons. And you saw New Country. I’m not sucking the devil’s dick quite yet. As far as Two And A Half Men goes and what I think of that show, I don’t. I made and still make a lot of money from it, I worked hard while I was there and it was a job. At the time I got it, I would have written for I-Fucking-Carly or The Carrot Top Christmas Special. I chose a life in show-business, I can’t always be picky. It’s a gig. A paying gig. And as a guy who opened for Bill Hicks many times, he was as sober as a judge the last few years of his life and that’s when he was doing his most daring stuff. Not when he was using or drinking. I want a long, explored, artistic life where I am used up and spent at the end, but in a good way. Not that I would ever trade the two African-American women in Philly. God, what were their names?
SP: No, for sure — I get that. That’s the line I am talking about, I think. Obviously, it can be straddled. And it seems you’ve got that. I used to wake and bake seven days a week, and one day, just kind of realized that I wasn’t going to really get anything done if that was going to be my life. So now, it’s just like… when it makes sense, or whatever.
So, this benefit, tell me a little about why you are so involved? Greg Chew was your teacher, I realize, but you had a lot of teachers, I imagine. We all did. You’ve stuck around here in CU, even if you’ve not been always present. What is it about Chew and this benefit that has you so involved?
Roberts: Before we move on let me state that I still very much LOVE weed. It makes my noisy head quiet and happy. Anyway, Greg. I’ve had two very important teachers in my life. One was Mary Ellen Page at Tolono Junior High, the other was Greg Chew at Urbana High School. What made Greg, in my mind, a great teacher was that it was never about him. And we all know how rare that is in high school level theater. The teacher is usually some sad, never made it, broken, Broadway baby, trying to live as close to the spotlight as they can and still make it appear like they care about young people, which they usually don’t except in a creepy way. Greg tossed us all together, showed us what we needed to do and then let us do it. He led quietly and selflessly and had a palpable love of the theater. And along the way, was a union rep for his fellow teachers and a strong one, too. He cared a lot about other people and dedicated his life to them. And always with humor and good cheer and for thirty-five years. They’ll never see another one like him and they should name that fucking theater after him, instead of waiting for big pockets so they can call it The State Farm Theater or The Walmart-fuck-you-little-town multi-plex.
SP: I assume you are referring to Cobb Auditorium. Have you thought of going to Don Owen, the superintendent, about that? I am betting it’s a discussion.
Roberts: I spoke to Don about changing it to The Greg Chew Theater in the Cobb Auditorium, but that never went anywhere. It’s all politics and Urbana is the worst. They talk everything to death and nothing ever gets done except people getting pissed off at each other. And everybody has an agenda at that level because there’s no money and it’s all positioning and politics, just like everything else. We will keep his memory alive with the scholarship fund and hopefully making this an annual event, beyond that, who knows.
SP: The ironic part of this, is that Don Owen for me, was like Greg Chew for you. He taught us history in a way that made me go “AH! I got it.” And as a result, I see the world in a particular way. Perhaps it’s time to re-open that discussion.
In any event, when did you move to Urbana? Why? Parents decided Carle Park was a better place to learn about nature than in Tolono?
Roberts: I like Don, don’t get me wrong. I just have very little patience for academia, but it’s great that he was so important to you and yes, it should be re-opened. The move from Tolono happened in ’75 and I think it was based on wanting a bigger house and Urbana was where they found the one they liked. That was a hard move, because literally all of my childhood friends were in Tolono. Luckily, that was the summer Jaws opened so I spent two months with no friends in the Orpheum Theater getting the shit scared out of me. saw that movie fifty times that summer, no joke. Made me want to be in show business.
SP: So that answers another question: if you saw Jaws fifty times, and you thought, that’s what I want to do, what were your steps? I mean, you walked the stage, and then what? Give me a two-minute drill on your trajectory from getting baked outside of the Orpheum to creating shows like Mike and Molly.
Roberts: Wasn’t getting baked, I was fourteen. And that’s 1975 fourteen. Here’s the quick version. I did some plays in school and at The Station and at Krannert, felt I had a knack for make-believe, started doing stand-up, moved to Chicago, did comedy, commercials, some small movie roles, moved to LA, got on the Tonight Show, did a lot of TV shows and then one of my plays was seen by a big shot producer, he hired me, i worked on his shows, became head writer, was asked to create my own show, did, ran it for three years, it went into syndication and now I’m coming back to Champaign to honor one of the people who encouraged me to do all of that crazy shit.
SP: Sounds like it kind of all worked out then. Any serious regrets? Things you still really want to do?
Roberts: No serious regrets. Maybe doing Star Search, but the hotel was nice. It’s all been a learning process and I’m just trying to get better at what I do. I’m working on a new stage thing that has a lot of musical elements in it, I’m working on a TV thing, just writing. I genuinely love sitting down and putting words together, so I’m just going to do that until somebody tells me I can’t.
Mark Roberts will be on stage doing stand up this Saturday at Mike N Molly’s, along with a host of other comedians, bands, and other entertainment for Laugh-a-Palooza, which will benefit the Greg Chew Theatre Scholarship. Doors open at 7:00 p.m. and tickets can be purchased here in advance.