Two years ago, Communication sophomore and aspiring comedy writer Kyra Lesmerises was touring Northwestern’s campus. When she spotted advertisements for late-night comedy club The Deep End, the thought of flexing her “comedy muscles” with the club as her muse enticed her.
“Any comedy club excited me, but I remember seeing that poster specifically and thinking that sounded like a really cool club,” Lesmerises said.
However, Lesmerises arrived on campus for her first year to find that the club was no more.
The Deep End is a medium for students to discuss topical campus issues in talk-show-style format. Drawing inspiration from comedian John Oliver, past productions were quarterly 20-minute satirical videos on YouTube with a multi-dimensional composition that included history, news coverage and potential solutions.
With many activities on campus and minimal meetings, The Deep End fizzled out, faculty adviser Erik Gernand said.
Communication freshman Aditi Adve spearheads the club. Adve hopes to pursue satirical writing professionally. She said watching “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” with her family every night inspired her passion for the craft.
“It sparked my interest in comedy,” Adve said. “By the time I was a freshman (or) sophomore in high school, I knew I wanted to write TV and write comedy.”
Former club head writer Xanthe Brown (Communication ’23) and Adve share a high school alma mater and reconvened to talk about the status of the club, and Brown suggested Adve revive The Deep End, Adve said.
The revived club, led by Adve with around 35 members, is still fine-tuning its structure with audience engagement in mind.
“We talked about different ways that we can bring it back in the best way possible, ays that we can make it more accessible,” Lesmerises said.
To create more frequent content, Adve said she wants to add a social media element, but she hopes to continue the foundation of deep investigative dives into a topic and conveying it through a comical medium.
The structural features of The Deep End are also changing.
According to Adve, in previous years, the journalism room and the writers’ room were separate entities. The journalists who delved into a story would bring their notes to the writers room, after which the writers would transform them into a satirical story.
With a mix of journalism and radio, television and film students interested in the club, Adve wants to make a more “cohesive club culture,” and involve all club members in all aspects of the process, she said.
“We were talking about all the ways our expertises could contribute,” Lesmerises said. “It was really cool to have people from different majors and knowing different things come together.”
Adve said production will begin next year, focusing on improving administrative factors this year.
Gernand said he hopes the club “gets back on (its) feet” to fill an important place on campus.
“I think satire is such an important avenue for people to be able to deal with issues and to confront societal ills to find a creative and unique way that can reach an audience,” Gernand said. “I love that (The Deep End) can have a chance to do that here.”
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