Will Friedle

How did you go from standup to St.

Elsewhere?

I went from stand up to writing stage plays.

I did stand up in San Francisco in the heyday of San Francisco.

It was Dana Carvey and Robin Williams had just left town and gotten discovered.

And it was A. Whitney Brown and a lot of great comics.

So there were actually three levels of comedians in San Francisco when I was there in the early 80s.

There were the headliners like Dana Carvey.

There were the open, and that was the top level.

The third level, the bottom level, was the open micers.

And the middle level consisted of me.

I emceed the open mics.

That was the middle level.

And once in a while, I would open for somebody like Dana.

So I did say it did stand up for about two years in San Francisco and I could not take the cigarette smoke.

You know, in those days they smoked in the clubs and I just couldn't take it.

So I thought I'll write plays.

And I got a fellowship to Indiana University to be a playwright.

And there was something called the American College Theater Festival.

I don't know if that probably still exists, where they would send judges around the country to see productions.