THE DAY THE LAUGHTER DIED

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SEND OUT THE CLOWNS

or

THE SUN GROWS COLD AND DARK AND BIRDS REFUSE TO SING AND EVERYONE IN THE WORLD GETS HERPES

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WHY THE GARRENS COMEDY TROUPE ENDED

By ERIC D. SNIDER
Garrens founder, director and writer

When the Garrens Comedy Troupe announced on March 8, 2001, that it would close up shop and go home, it was an abrupt end to a long, successful run. The group had just finished celebrating its eighth anniversary with a massive reunion show; why in the world would it stop now?

Fans and casual observers alike wondered what the deal was. Newspaper stories, e-mails and Web sites gave the general reasons, but there was clearly more to it.

This article will explain what led to the demise of the Garrens Comedy Troupe. I am not writing this as a gossipy "tell-all" bit of juiciness, nor am I trying to clear my own name. (Indeed, you will find me at fault a number of times in the story.) This also is not an attempt to reopen old wounds, though I recognize that may be an unfortunate result of it. I'm writing this out of a pure desire to tell what I believe is an interesting story, and one that Garrens fans deserve to know.

I have written everything as accurately and fairly as possible. It is told from my point of view, but I have included others' feelings and motives inasmuch as I was aware of them. If interested parties have clarifications they would like added, I am glad to revise as necessary.

So get comfortable. It's a long story.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

Things began to unravel nearly a year before the end actually came. In the spring of 2000, someone approached Garrens owner Lincoln Hoppe about buying the business from him. The man, whose name was Jason, had friends and family in the cast and a genuine interest in the show as an entertainment source. He was also an entrepreneur who knew a good business opportunity when he saw one.

As it happens, Lincoln was in something of a selling mood. He had stopped directing the Garrens, and we were preparing to combine back into one cast again. (For the previous two semesters, he and I each had a Garrens cast, and we alternated weeks performing.) He lived in Salt Lake City, too, which limited his direct involvement with the Provo-based group, and he'd been at it non-stop since 1993, which no doubt was tiring. I believe that while he still had some sentimental ties to the Garrens, he did not have a terribly strong creative connection to it anymore. Financially, yes, he was involved -- but with the group not exactly a barn-burner in terms of income, and with Lincoln thinking of moving to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career, maybe it was time to sell.

With Lincoln considering selling the group (to someone who planned to put me in charge of running it, by the way), I began to think. When I was on my LDS mission and Lincoln turned the Garrens into a business, I had never been consulted or included. When I got home, I had re-auditioned for the group and was never considered as a business partner, nor was any compensation ever made for my having started the group that Lincoln now owned. I had enjoyed working in the Garrens, and I was paid for my current work. But that matter of past compensation continued to bother me every now and then. Didn't I deserve SOMETHING for being the founder, regardless of my current activity with the group? I came up with the NAME, if nothing else; isn't that worth something?

It occurred to me that if I was ever going to get compensated for all that, it would need to be before Lincoln sold the business. A new owner would be under no obligation to pay me for something that happened years ago under the previous management. Desiring merely to know what my options were for when I brought up the subject with Lincoln, I visited a lawyer friend of mine.

While visiting with him, we discovered something important. The Garrens Comedy Troupe was registered as a DBA. That stands for "doing business as." It essentially means that Lincoln Hoppe, as owner, WAS the Garrens, and if you ever sued the Garrens for something, for example, Lincoln's personal assets would be fair game, too. It's risky, but easier for small-business owners.

What we discovered was that Lincoln had allowed his ownership of the name "The Garrens Comedy Troupe" to expire. Currently, no one legally had the right to operate a business under that name. For better or worse, and under the advice of my lawyer friend, I immediately registered it in my name. While we were at it, we registered a trademark on the name "The Garrens Comedy Troupe" for creative (i.e., non-business) purposes, too, since no one had ever done that.

This meant that legally, no one had the right to do business as the Garrens without my permission. It also meant you couldn't, say, operate under some other name but call your shows "The Garrens Comedy Troupe" (for the sake of name recognition), since I also had the trademark.

Was this a weaselly thing to do? Most certainly. In a sense, it was fair, though. Lincoln had essentially taken the name "the Garrens" from me in the first place, turning my BYU student club into a business without my knowledge, permission or compensation. Now I had taken the name back again.

At the time, though, I didn't look at it in any devious way. I saw it as protecting my interests the only way I could. If I had just called Lincoln and told him, "Oh, by the way, you forgot to re-register the name, you'd better take care of that," I'd have closed off my options. Having discussed matters of money with Lincoln before, I knew the odds were not good he'd be agreeable, at this late date, to paying me anything for having started the group seven years earlier. If I held a few of the cards, though, he'd at least have to listen.

Lincoln, needless to say, was not happy about the DBA thing. Our business manager, Alicia, was more or less on my side, which did not make him any happier. He and I finally agreed that if he sold the business to Jason, I would want a percentage of the sale (we did not agree on what percentage at that point). If he decided not to sell, well, then he and I would have to work something out. At this point, I thought selling the business was very likely.

Then he didn't sell. Lincoln described Jason's offer as "insulting"; other people I talked to described it as "generous." The offer was $11,000: $5,000 for physical assets (props, sound equipment, etc.), and the rest for "intellectual property" (the sketches, the BYU performing contract, etc.). Considering how little money the Garrens actually profited in a year, $11,000 was a marvelous sum. Looking at potential earnings, it may have been low (though not terribly low). I am not a businessman, so I couldn't say for sure how one arrives at a fair price for a business. But Lincoln wasn't a businessman, either, and he was never able to explain to me in a way I could understand why $11,000 was so low in his opinion. He did say he thought Jason low-balled him because Jason knew I now owned the name, which meant he wasn't buying that from Lincoln. I say $11,000 was a good amount anyway, and Lincoln should have taken it.

At any rate, he wasn't selling, and we were back to having to figure out how we would work out this DBA thing. By this time, most of the summer had passed, with me directing our monthly BYU shows and keeping most of this behind-the-scenes drama from even the cast members, as knowledge of everything would have just distracted them from the matter at hand, i.e., being funny.

Over the summer, Lincoln underwent a remarkable transformation. We went to lunch at Los Hermanos in Provo to discuss our options that August, and it was a delightful experience. After so many years of knowing Lincoln, I had never seen him so genuinely nice, agreeable and considerate. He had always been a nice person, but the pressures of running a high-stress business like the Garrens had frequently gotten to him. Now, he sincerely wanted to make everything right between us -- not just professionally, but personally. We had been friends, and it was seriously upsetting to him that our friendship was now jeopardized.

I apologized for my behavior in taking the DBA. He apologized for, as he put it, behaving in a way that led me to believe I had no other choice. He pledged a new era of openness in our communication and a real desire to make the Garrens work, and to do whatever it would take to fix everything. I was impressed and humbled by his sincerity.

We discussed what I wanted in order to continue on as the director and head writer for the Garrens in the upcoming season. Basically, it came down to money. Since I already had a more-than-full-time job, the Garrens, as much fun as it was, presented a challenge. I needed to be compensated for my time and creative energy.

I proposed a salary for my work, plus a percentage of the Garrens' overall income that I would be entitled to even if I left the group -- royalties, if you will, for having started the thing in the first place. In exchange for this, I said I would sign the DBA back over to Lincoln.

We reached a happy agreement, and we were both excited to start a new season of weekly shows under a new attitude, new leadership and renewed zeal.

But still: There was lingering resentment. The fact was, I HAD swiped the DBA from Lincoln. The fact was, it DID still kind of bother me that for all those years, Lincoln had never wanted to give me monetary compensation for being the Garrens founder. Though we had apologized for our past misbehaviors, it is hard to undo the past....

GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT

The Garrens fall 2000 season began with spectacular attendance and fantastic shows. Attendance grew throughout the semester, and the shows remained strong. It was seen as a sort of rebirth of the group. Where attendance had been see-sawing under the two-cast system, it was steady and solid with one cast and one director.

Part of my arrangement with Lincoln was that I would have complete creative control. I welcomed his opinion, of course, but the shows would be strictly under my advisement. With Lincoln directing the Salt Lake-based Garrens sub-cast (which also operated under the Garrens name and did shows periodically in Salt Lake City), he was busy enough, and he turned all business matters over to Alicia. He remained owner -- and drew a salary -- but Alicia and I ran everything.

This worked fine. However, we began to notice problems with Mary Sweat, the Student Life employee at BYU who served as our adviser. When the Garrens first began their relationship with Student Life in 1994 -- the same time they switched from being a club to being a business -- Mary was eager to work with this exciting new group that the students all seemed to love. It was highly unusual for Student Life to hire the same group to come perform on campus every single week, and the Garrens were forever grateful to them for making an exception to the unwritten rule by taking us on.

Now, though, the bloom was off the rose for Mary. She'd been at her job for nearly 30 years, which surely was taking its toll. She had liked Lincoln Hoppe and Joel Wallin, who were running the Garrens in the old days, and she hadn't liked me for some time. (There are any number of reasons not to like me, but I am unsure which ones she chose.) I had very, very little direct contact with her, as Alicia handled all our business matters, but Alicia would fill me in. Any time we'd ask for something at all unusual for the show, Mary's first answer was always "no"; with some cajoling, Alicia could get her to at least CHECK on it. Mary seemed generally unenthusiastic and uncooperative, even though our shows required minimal effort on her part yet still brought in a few hundred dollars a week for her organization. When she dropped by a show, her reaction to it was never, "Nice show!" or "Congratulations on the sold-out crowd!" It was, "Could Cristian shave that goatee...?" or something equally unhelpful.

In the meantime, we completed a very successful Fall 2000 season and looked forward to Winter 2001. Unfortunately, we also suffered a creative blow: Fully half of the Garrens got parts in BYU's production of "Richard III," rehearsals and performances of which were going to occupy all of the Winter 2001 semester.

This meant I had to hold auditions to fill their spots, which was tiresome. As it happens, some of the Garrens leaving were among my personal favorites to work with, taking some of the wind out of my sails. Plus, Alicia announced she was moving to Washington state and would have to resign as our business manager. All this, combined with the work of that fall season, plus the planning for the upcoming eighth anniversary show, meant that before the Winter 2001 season even began, I was already getting tired of it. Burn-out usually doesn't occur until two-thirds of the way into a season, and now here it was, happening before we even did the first show. I figured I could make it through the semester, and then the summer break would be rejuvenating.

LETTERS ENTERTAIN YOU

The problems with Mary Sweat came to a head in January 2001, with the Garrens 8th Anniversary Spectacular. The Garrens needed a taller stage than usual for the large room we were performing in, to make us more visible to people sitting in the back, as the floor was not sloped. We were told we couldn't have it, but on the night of the show, the Wilkinson Center employees found one for us, for which we were incredibly grateful.

Word got back to Mary, however, that I had bullied the Wilk employees into bringing us a stage I KNEW we weren't allowed to have. Mary went so far as to suggest to Alicia that I had intentionally waited until the full-time staff went home and preyed upon the less-knowledgeable part-timers. Her reason for believing that version of events over mine? "He has a history of stretching the truth," is what she told Alicia, utterly without justification, adding that she had seen me behave in a bullying and intimidating manner before. To add insult to injury, we were double-charged for the set-up of the stage.

I was furious that after eight years of being a campus institution, and more than six years of working with Mary, this was the treatment we were getting. To declare me a liar and refuse to accept my version of the events -- especially considering I had several witnesses -- was appalling. It did not bode well for our future. How could we go on working with her when she didn't trust us?

I sent this e-mail to Mary. This e-mail and her response to it -- or, rather, her lack of a response -- led directly to the end of the Garrens.

09 February 2001
Dear Mary --

Alicia has told me about the problems we had regarding our stage for our 8th Anniversary Show. I am very troubled at the things I've been accused of, and more troubled at where this puts the Garrens' relationship with you and Student Leadership.

Here is what happened: We requested a stage higher than our usual 18" stage, because the floor in Room 3228 is not sloped, and we wanted people in the back to be able to see the actors more than just from the waist up. We were told a taller stage was not available, primarily because of the height of the room itself. We went around and around about this, and finally had to settle for the 18" stage.

When we arrived there, the 18" stage was set up. We were preparing to make the best of it. Then the building people (I don't know who they are -- the ones who set up the rooms) came by. The girl came up to me and said that on the work order, it requested TWO stages. I said that was because originally, we had toyed with the idea of getting two stages, and stacking one top of the other, thus doubling the height. But we had been told we weren't allowed to do that; I was surprised it was still on the work order.

When I told her that, she said, "We have a 36-inch stage." I said, "You do?" She said, "Yes." I said, "Here in the building?" (Alicia had told me a 36-inch stage did exist, but it was an "outdoor" stage, whatever that means, and we couldn't use it.) She said, "Yes." I said, "Can we use it?" She said, "Sure."

I was very happy, and expressed my pleasure to the cast. We all helped the Wilkinson Center employees take down the 18-inch stage and wheel the components into the storage room. Before the employees brought the taller stage, though, they told me they had looked at the room, and they thought that might be too high. We measured it, and sure enough, it would be. They said they had a 24-inch stage, though. I said that would be great -- taller than the terrible 18-inch stage we'd been stuck with, but not TOO tall. They said they'd get it. And they did. And they set it up. And I thanked them profusely for saving us.

That is how it happened. If anyone has told you it happened any other way, that person has lied to you. Mark Berrett witnessed most of it and would be glad to back me up on how it happened. He is as upset as I am that anyone would accuse me of lying about it.

There was no coercion, intimidation or force of any kind. Think about it logically: I didn't even know there WAS a taller stage until THEY told me. And why would they have told me about it if it wasn't possible for us to use it? I didn't have to "talk them into" letting us have it; when I found out there was a higher stage, I asked if we could use it, and the girl said yes! I didn't have to beg, plead, or threaten; she basically offered it to us.

Despite this, we have been charged $180 instead of $90 for the set-up -- because they had to set up two different stages. This is preposterous. We asked for a taller stage in the first place and you told us we couldn't get it. We wound up getting what we wanted after all, because someone used common sense and logic (instead of bureaucracy and red tape), and said, "Hmm. These guys need a taller stage. We HAVE a taller stage. Why not let them use it?" Where in that process do you see anything that makes it OUR fault? Why should we be charged twice for getting what we asked for in the first place?

I'm not saying it's your fault, either; perhaps you were misinformed about the availability of a taller stage. But it's certainly not our fault! We should not have been charged that extra $90.

More disturbing, though, is your insistence to Alicia that I have been lying about how the transaction took place. I would like to know when, in the five years (off and on) I've dealt with you, have I ever lied to you? I have not lied about this, nor do I make it a practice to lie about anything else.

Since I became involved with the Garrens again in September 1999, I have had very little direct contact with you at all. How, then, could you come to the conclusion that I'm a liar, and a manipulator, and an intimidator? I've hardly even talked to you in all that time!

Is it somehow the content of the shows I'm responsible for that leads you to these conclusions? Have I published something somewhere that has given you a low opinion of me?

I knew you didn't think much of me, but it hasn't really been a problem until now. Frankly, I don't see how the Garrens can continue to work with you and your department when you think the Garrens director is a liar -- and when you think that so strongly, you're willing to double-charge us for something.

Here is the bottom line: By the end of the day Friday, Feb. 16, the Garrens Comedy Troupe needs to have received a check for $90 as reimbursement for the double-charging on the stage.

Also by that time, I need to hear from you personally that you believe my account of how everything transpired, and that you do not believe I have lied about it. This does not need to be an "apology"; just a statement that you believe my account. You can do this by phone, in person, mail or e-mail.

If both of these conditions are not met by the end of the day Friday, Feb. 16, then that night's Garrens performance will be our last for you and Student Leadership. We cannot work in a situation where there is such vehement mistrust and such a basic lack of communication and fairness.

Sincerely,
Eric D. Snider

Now, that was an idle threat at the end there. I had no authority to cancel the rest of our shows. Only Lincoln, who still owned the group, could make that decision, though I could certainly recommend it to him. But I figured telling Mary I was going to quit the Garrens unless amends were made wouldn't be much of a threat to her, since she didn't like having me around anyway.

A few days later, I received this reply from Mary's boss.

13 February 2001
Dear Eric:

Mary Sweat has presented to me a copy of your e-mail, which she received last week. Based on the tone and the content she felt it appropriate to share the details of the incident and the e-mail with me. As the director of the department, I have decided to offer a response to you and have indicated to Mary that she does not need to reply, herself. [Apparently, despite being a grown woman, Mary must ask her supervisors whether she can or should reply to e-mails sent to her.]

First, in spite of the threatening tone and content, particular at the end of your e-mail, I am writing to indicate that as a department we are willing to carry out the terms of the current contract, which would conclude in April of this year. However, your warning that such may not be the attitude of the Garrens is duly noted.

Second, I am writing to inform you that we will not refund any portion of the additional $90 you have been charged for the set up of the second stage. The reasons for this are simple:

1. There were 2 stages set.

2. The charges for the second stage to be set were incurred and billed to the cost of running the program. (As you know, costs ordinarily billed to the program are split between our department and the Garrens, before any profits are distributed. In this case, however, such will not occur. For the reasons, see points 3, 4, and 5 below.)

3. The set up of the stage and the subsequent charges were not authorized by our department. In fact, quite the contrary. We had specifically attempted numerous times to get the staging you wanted, but were clearly told that such was not allowed for many reasons. Thus, we authorized the set up of the stage that was allowed, were billed for this initial set up, and the costs were distributed according to the standard contract agreement.

4. The only reason the additional $90 was charged to the program was because on the night of the performance, based on conversations between individuals from the Garrens and the custodial staff, the first set up was torn down and the second was put in its place. The willingness, or lack of willingness, on the part of the custodial staff in making the change is irrelevant. The costs were incurred solely because the Garrens had a second stage set up done on the night of the performance, without authorization from the department.

5. Since our department has paid its share of the staging authorized by our department, the additional, or extra, costs incurred by this second stage set up is the Garrens to pay -- in full. Such has happened, since the amount was subtracted prior to the profits being distributed.

Finally, I am also writing to inform you that we believe no further communication on this matter is necessary. The only exception to this would be the expectation we have that you or the manager of the Garrens will provide an appropriate one week's notice as to whether you choose to carry out the contract as currently written or if you are voiding the contract as your e-mail indicated could occur. Beyond this expected notification, we consider the matter to be closed. [Classic BYU behavior: "This is how it is, and we don't want to discuss it any further, period."]

If there are other issues or concerns you feel need to be addressed, you are welcome to bring them to the attention of either Mary Sweat or myself.

Sincerely,
Michael R. McCleve
Director of Student Leadership

(You should be most shocked at learning BYU charges $90 to set up a temporary stage, and that's on top of the $200 or so they charge for the room rental. That's a racket they've got going there, especially when they charge you twice!)

I immediately replied:

13 February 2001
Michael --

Thanks for your e-mail.

I assume that Mary, having been excused by you from responding to me, has no intention of expressing a belief in my side of the story. You said this is not the point, and perhaps it is not relevant in the issue of the double-charging. But it is highly relevant in our relationship with Student Life.

I am the director of the Garrens. My brother is about to take over as business manager (replacing Alicia Lewis, who is moving out of state). If our Student Life liaison considers me a liar, despite having no evidence that I've ever lied to her, what will she think of my brother, whose personality I believe to be similar to mine? How are we to continue working with Student Life with that level of mistrust? The relationship is severely strained by such a thing.

As for the issue with the stage, there are two possibilities of what happened:

1) When we requested the taller stage, Mary asked for it. The WSC people told her it wasn't available. As it turns out, it WAS available, and we used it.

2) When we requested the taller stage, Mary asked for it. The WSC people told her it wasn't available. They were right; we shouldn't have been able to use it, and the WSC custodian person erred in offering it to us.

Note that in either case, IT IS NOT THE GARRENS' FAULT! In the first scenario, it was a communication problem with the WSC, and they shouldn't have charged anyone for it, since it was their mistake. In the second scenario, it was still their mistake, and their employee shouldn't have offered us the stage. But in neither scenario was it our fault (or even Student Life's, probably).

But since the WSC has charged you for it, even though it was not our fault or yours, perhaps the fair thing would be for us to split the cost with you. It is patently unfair, however, for the Garrens to be charged for the entire thing, since in no case was it our fault. (If the custodian had told me after offering us the stage that we'd be billed twice, that would be one thing. But she didn't, and it didn't occur to me that we'd be double-charged for getting what we'd asked for in the first place.)

Splitting the cost 50/50 (well, $45/$45) would be acceptable to us.

A copy of this is going to Mary Sweat. I still await her response as to the level of trust or mistrust we have in our working relationship with her. It is entirely possible that her libelous accusations have damaged our relationship irreparably, but perhaps not.

Sincerely,
Eric D. Snider

Still no reply from Mary herself. Instead, another one from Michael:

16 February 2001
Eric:

I am offering the following as a response to your most recent e-mail. I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. As you are probably aware it is the season of elections and the vast majority of my 14-16 hour days is being consumed by that. Today's front page story in the Daily Universe is not helping at this particular hour, either.

In your e-mail, you mention that there are two possibilities for why the stage set-up happened the way it did. In actuality, there are more than those two possibilities. Both of your scenarios hinge on the general availability of that staging, when in fact this was not the factor at all. What prevented us from getting the stage you wanted was the response from the head of custodial services in the WSC telling us that the ceiling in the room you were using was too low for the higher stage and that the only higher risers that might fit (though even they would be questionable) was on the 2nd floor and for other practical reasons were not to be removed from the 2nd floor.

Regardless of the specific reasons, yours or these, I would concur that in this incident the fault most likely lies with custodial services. Given this improved understanding of the matter I would also agree with your recommendation of evenly splitting the cost with the Garrens. We are willing to split 50/50 what had been previously charged to the Garrens.

Regarding that, Diane Hill, our accounting specialist has provided me with a corrected number. She shared with me that the Garrens had actually been charged $180 for the extra set-up. This was because that's what was billed to us from custodial services just for the second stage. Thus, the 50/50 split would mean the Garrens will actually be refunded $90. This will be added back into the next payment you receive, which will be processed after the February 16, 2001 show.

I have noted that you have interpreted Mary Sweat's actions as having produced "libelous accusations." As I understand the meaning of libel, her actions would have to have led to a published, or public defamation of character. I do not consider that Mary has ever acted in any way to publicly disgrace, humiliate, or otherwise openly cast aspersions against your character. Her words during the conversation with the business manager never called you any type of names or judged your character to be dishonest. Mary simply asserted her beliefs to that point in the information she had gathered from the head of custodial services and the supervisor.

[Let me interject here: This is not true. Mary DID judge my character to be dishonest; she said, "He has a history of stretching the truth." Furthermore, while it is true the statement was not libelous, it WAS slanderous. (Libel is written; slander is spoken.) The statement need only be made to one other person for it to be considered "public," and it certainly had the potential to damage my reputation and livelihood. In fact, since it ultimately led to the downfall of the Garrens, it DID affect my livelihood.]

It is because of this view that I have held, and continue to hold, that Mary did not, nor does she even now, need to personally respond. Given my intervention as the director, I do not expect that she will ever respond.

Nevertheless, given what has occurred, and the apparent existence of your feelings to the contrary, I would agree with your statement that the relationship is severely strained and seriously affecting the ability to transact business. In fact, I believe it is so strained that I have reviewed our contract to determine what appropriate course of action may be outlined there, if any. In my review I noted the following clause, "If other mutually agreeable circumstances arise that make completion of this contract an impossibility for either or both parties, the agreements itemized in this contract will no longer be binding by mutual consent." Perhaps it is this clause you had in mind when you wrote the previous e-mail wherein you stated the possibility that the Friday, February 16, 2001 show would be the last. In my opinion, it does appear that we have mutually agreed that circumstances have arisen which threaten the working relationship between Student Leadership and the Garrens. I am offering that if you believe it is so strained as to warrant the "completion of this contract an impossibility," then we need to mutually agree to void the remainder of the contract. Such mutual agreement, as far as I am concerned, is possible if you care to discuss it.

However, as I stated in my last e-mail to you, Student Leadership is prepared to complete the terms of the current contract if that would be the preferred course of the Garrens and we can agree to maintain an adequate working relationship.

Please consider your feelings and opinions in this matter and let me know of your assessment of how necessary it may be for this clause of the contract to be exercised. I would appreciate hearing from you in a reasonably sufficient time, perhaps 5-7 days is enough, before the performance of any future shows.

Thank you,
Michael R. McCleve
Director of Student Leadership

On Friday, Feb. 16 -- the show I had initially threatened would be our last -- Mary did something that made the end of things even more certain, if it was not certain already. She came to our shows, which was unusual enough. Furthermore, she stayed for all three performances, which was completely unheard of. Finally, she wrote down everything we did in the shows that could be considered offensive -- which, if you're LOOKING to be offended, is pretty much anything involving comedy.

The 7:30 show was a pretty bad show. Attendance was low, and our material was lukewarm. Mary's presence in the audience, making no attempt to hide the fact that was taking notes, rattled me a little.

After the show, she came backstage to where I was and talked to me. She said, "That show was terrible!" I said, "Yeah, well, it wasn't a very good show." She said, "It was just filthy!" Now hold on, I told her, that's another complaint altogether.

"What was wrong with it?" I asked.

"Everything!" she said. "Every bit of it! If you don't change it for the 9 o'clock show, I will cancel the 10:30 show!"

I said, "You'll have to tell us what to change!"

"Everything!"

"You want us to change EVERYTHING?" I said, incredulous. "Specifically, what?"

She listed her problems with the show. One sketch had mentioned marijuana. It had also included a direct charge to the audience not to mess with drugs, but yes, it did mention the existence of drugs. Another sketch had made fun of a character who drank a lot.

Most of her other complaints had to do with improvisations, which naturally were going to be different every time anyway. (She did say, however -- and this is absolutely true -- that she didn't know which one were improvs and which ones were sketches. Despite having been associated with the Garrens Comedy Troupe for more than six years, and despite my introducing each improv with, "We're going to do an improv now," Mary Sweat still could not tell the difference. Unbelievable.)

Her biggest complaint had to do with our having performed a musical improv that took place in a zipper factory. It dealt a lot with zippers. This stemmed from my having accidentally come onstage with my fly down, which an audience member pointed out, and which I made a joke of.

I couldn't believe that Mary was really complaining about our having talked about zippers, but there she was, complaining about it. I told her we'd take out the drug reference and be careful not to mention zippers in the next show.

The result of all this? I was furious and completely unnerved. The cast, who had witnessed the whole exchange, was also livid. How were we to go on and do a comedy show with that kind of hassling going on just before we went on?

That second show was the most surreal of my life. I did my opening monologue/audience warm-up completely shaken, desperately double-checking everything I said BEFORE I said it, trying to avoid saying something inadvertently obscene ("obscene" being defined here as "anything Mary won't like," which had proven itself to be a broad category).

At one point, when I asked for an emotion for us to use in an improv, an audience member suggested "anger." I rejected it, saying, "No, we did that one in the last show. And between shows." The audience didn't know what I meant by "between shows," but Alicia and others who knew the story fell off their chairs laughing.

When the show was over, Mary told me it had been "much, much better," and we were allowed to go on with the 10:30 show. But the damage was done. She had clearly been on a fact-finding mission, looking for evidence against keeping us around. After the weekend, I sent Michael this e-mail:

20 February 2001
Michael --

I appreciate your willingness to finish out the semester with the Garrens, if that's how things turn out. However, I am not entirely certain Mary doesn't have other ideas.

As you may know, Mary came to our shows Friday night. She was there for all three of them. She was writing down everything we did that might be considered offensive. After the 7:30 show, she came backstage and told me how dreadfully offensive the show had been, and threatened to cancel the 10:30 show if the 9:00 one wasn't 100 percent better.

Among her complaints (and this is approximately the caliber of all of them) was that we had done an improvisation about zippers. Zippers, apparently, are extremely obscene in Mary's world. (It is worth noting the the zipper incident got the best audience response of the show. Mary was the only one who found it offensive, and it's because she was looking for things to be offended by.)

The 9:00 show was evidently better, because she let us do the 10:30 show, too. Still, she stuck around and jotted down more things. I have no idea what she plans to do with this list, but it was clear what she was doing: looking for reasons to shut us down.

We know she (and perhaps Student Life in general) is tired of the Garrens, for what reason, I don't know. If they just don't renew our contract, they look like spoil-sports to observers. If they have a REASON, though -- the Garrens' shows are offensive! -- then they're in the right.

The only problem is, our shows aren't offensive. The shows we did Friday were no different from the shows we've done for eight years. Would we still be attracting a BYU audience every single week if the shows were offensive to them? No. Are our shows any more crude, lewd or obscene than the major productions done by the Theater Department? No. (Even less, really: They say "hell" and "damn" all the time, and we never do.)

You acknowledged in your last e-mail that the Garrens' relationship with you folks is strained, perhaps beyond repair. I am very curious to know, however, what WE have done to strain that relationship. I've seen Mary saying that I have a history of stretching the truth (OK, she didn't use the word "liar," but what else could that mean?), and refusing to accept our version of how things happened with that stage. I've seen Mary refuse to respond to e-mails, passing them on to her boss instead. I've seen Mary be grumpy, unreasonable, disrespectful and downright rude last Friday night. (Audience members noticed her, too, between shows, and asked what was going on.) I've seen her be uncooperative and unhelpful as we've tried to put our shows together and have had the occasional special (but not outlandish) request.

If the relationship is strained -- which it certainly is -- I don't see anyone at fault besides Mary. Considering I've had almost zero direct contact with her the last two years, I don't see how I, personally, could have done anything. If my group has done anything to strain the relationship, I'd like to know what it was.

Her little witch-hunt Friday night was preposterous, insulting and uncalled for. I realize Student Life doesn't need the free money we make for them every week, but I think an eight-year campus institution deserves a little better treatment than we've been getting. Mary has treated us with no respect for several months now, and she's beginning to reap what she's sown.

We certainly have no intention of even TRYING to renew our contract with you past this semester. If you sought to cancel us immediately, I doubt we'd put up much of a fight. Our working relationship has been strained to the breaking point -- and it is Mary Sweat on whose shoulders the responsibility for that lies.

Awaiting a response from you.

Sincerely,
Eric D. Snider

As you can see, if I had ever minced words before, I was not mincing them now. Michael replied:

22 February 2001
Eric:

I have received your recent e-mail. I am considering what you have presented. I expect to offer a more detailed response early next week.

In the meantime, the Garrens are expected on campus this Friday, per the current contract. We are proceeding with preparations for the three shows that are scheduled.

Michael

Note that in none of this exchange was the real issue -- trust between the Garrens and Student Life -- ever addressed. When I said it was an issue, Michael said it wasn't. When I insisted it was, he said Mary's statement hadn't been libelous. When I said it was Mary's fault our relationship was strained, he pretended I hadn't said it.

If there had ever been a real discussion of any of these issues, the Garrens would not have stopped performing. If Mary had just replied to my first e-mail -- either by admitting she had no reason not to believe me, or by indicating what reason she did have -- we could have worked it out. But that was not to be.

MONEY MATTERS

After this last e-mail from Michael, I finally brought Lincoln up to speed on what had been going on. As it happens, simultaneous with all these e-mails, Lincoln and I had been having our own disagreements, this time over Garrens finances.

Lincoln had been drawing a salary over the previous few months, despite not being actively involved with the group. This was fine with me, as one of the perks of being the owner of a business is that your salary does not have to be in proportion to how much work you do. However, being an owner also means that if there's NOT any money, you're the first one not to get paid. And lately, the Garrens hadn't had enough money. Alicia had paid some bills out of her own pocket (without telling Lincoln she was doing it) and was later reimbursed, which meant the cycle continued.

In addition, the Garrens had lost money over the Christmas 2000 season. Normally, we'd have gotten a few thousand dollars from "away" shows -- special shows we do for corporate Christmas parties, banquets., etc. These shows were usually done by the Salt Lake Garrens, as the main Garrens group usually had other performances to do. When Lincoln and I first told Alicia about my new salary requirements, she had said it would work ONLY because she was counting on that money coming in with the holidays.

However, just after Thanksgiving, Lincoln told Alicia he was breaking those Salt Lake Garrens off into their own non-Garrens-related group, called The Skinny Lincolns. They would not use Garrens stuff, and we wouldn't use theirs; it would be totally separate. This meant most of those "away" shows were no longer the Garrens' to be had. Now, we could no longer afford all our expenses.

I told Lincoln that we were in dire straits, especially with Alicia about to leave and the incoming business manager probably not keen to lend his own money to the Garrens every month. I said I could see no way to rescue ourselves other than Lincoln taking a pay cut. Any other cutback (cast salary, advertising, etc.) would have directly impacted the quality of the shows themselves.

Lincoln's point of view was this: I had swiped the DBA from him and then used it as a bargaining chip to get a pay raise. I had also insisted he give me complete creative control and shut him out of the process entirely. Now, I was suggesting his salary -- the one connection he still actually had to the Garrens -- be trimmed. As he put it, if he's not getting a salary, and he's not involved in the shows, then in what way is he even still the owner? He might just as well sign it all over to me.

Of course, this was not what I was getting at. This was not part of some master plan I had to wrest complete ownership of the Garrens from him. (To be fair, I doubt he really thought that.) But it certainly looked bad, and no one likes being told he needs to take a pay cut -- especially when you put so many years into the group for almost nothing, which Lincoln had done.

I was sympathetic with Lincoln's position. I knew that after eight years of Garrens involvement, he had earned his retirement. He should have been able to sit back, let me and Alicia run things, and take his pension check every month. He had done incredible things for the Garrens, and often for almost no compensation.

However, I honestly couldn't see any other solution. My taking a pay cut simply was not an option. With burn-out already fast advancing (and Mary was fanning the flames there), taking away my salary would have been taking away one of the major reasons I was even still around. Plus, the inherent unfairness of doing all the work for nothing while someone else did none of the work for everything bothered me a lot.

Lincoln and I were still at an impasse when the e-mails with Mary and Michael reached their crescendo. The money issues had to be put aside.

THE FINAL MISTAKES

Lincoln took over the negotiations from this point on. He certainly understood, without having read these e-mails, how things were very strained with Mary, and he and I discussed possible ways of ending it. He wanted to do one last show, anyway. We had our March 2 show coming up, an all-improv show, which I had scheduled Joel Wallin to direct so I could take a much-needed weekend off. Lincoln convinced Michael to let us do that show, and we'd see about the rest of the semester.

Here's where it gets tricky. In Lincoln's conversations with Michael, it came out that Mary never had any problem with the Garrens; she just had a problem with me. She didn't want to have to deal with me anymore. (This made no sense to me: She had never dealt with me anyway. Alicia had always talked to her.) Michael said she probably wouldn't have a problem with me being in the shows, if we finished out the semester, but he wasn't sure if she'd mind me directing and emceeing, like I usually did.

My impression from talking to Lincoln about it was that he was leaving my fate in Mary's hands: If Mary said OK, then I'd be in the shows; if she said no, I'd be out, and the Garrens would finish without me. It sounded to me like Lincoln was selling me out, letting Mary decide whether I would be in the Garrens.

No way, I said. I sent an e-mail to Lincoln on Thursday, March 1, in which I quit. Rather than let Mary choose, I chose for her and canceled myself. If the Garrens were going to finish the semester -- and that was still up in the air -- they would do it without me. I was insulted, and I had been insulted often by the Garrens over the past eight years. I was also utterly and completely tired of everything Garrens-related. This was it.

The cast knew some of these details at this point. They knew my future with the group was uncertain, and since the group as a whole was in limbo, I figured they should know the upcoming show, March 2, might be their last. Nonetheless, we agreed they would do the show like normal and not make an issue of it, especially since they probably wouldn't know yet when they performed if it was to be their last one.

I went to Las Vegas to visit Ken and Katie Craig (former Garrens and good friends of mine), as planned. We saw the Blue Man Group. It was a nice weekend. The all-improv shows went fine under Joel's direction; Mary even came up after one and complimented Joel on how "classy" they were. (Joel bristled at this: He knew Mary was playing favorites, and that the show was not any different from the way it would have been if I'd been there running it.) Sure enough, with me not around, Mary loved the Garrens again.

I had already thought that if and when I left the Garrens, the group should end. Lincoln was not involved anymore, and we'd lost our business manager. If the director/head writer left, too, I envisioned the group becoming mediocre. I saw the possibility of another leader coming along who would keep the quality high, but it seemed unlikely. The exodus of myself, Joel Wallin and other key members in 1998 had led to a dismal several months of Garrens shows (which is what led Lincoln to lure me back in 1999 in the first place). I figured it would happen again. Anyone who was qualified to lead wasn't interested, and those who were interested lacked the passion and/or talent required to do it right. Better to just end it than to drag on forever in mediocrity.

When I returned to Provo from Las Vegas, I sent an e-mail to the Garrens cast members basically telling them to choose sides. I told them about Lincoln's salary and about how he had weaseled my situation with Mary to let her decide my fate. I told them if they participated in any future shows (if there were any), they'd be endorsing Lincoln's behavior. If they had any loyalty to me, I said, they would boycott the shows. The Garrens should end IMMEDIATELY, I said. Last Friday, March 2, needs to have been our last show, regardless of what Michael, Mary and Lincoln work out.

This, I shouldn't have done. This was a mistake. While I believed the things I was saying, I shouldn't have used language as blunt and harsh as I did, particularly in my statements against Lincoln. The problem with being a writer is that I know how to use words to my advantage, which means if I get the wrong idea into my head, I pursue that idea in writing with full, misguided vigor.

I am not printing the e-mail I wrote here. It would be unnecessarily hurtful to Lincoln, I think, to restate all those insults, even with the disclaimer that I don't mean them anymore.

Lincoln got a hold of the e-mail, of course, and called me, furious. He couldn't believe how I had stabbed him in the back. It wasn't my decision when the Garrens would end, he said; it was his.

After long phone conversations, we agreed to forgive each other on a personal level and not ever work together again. (We have successfully forgiven each other, I believe, but we've occasionally worked together since then -- though never with either of us in charge.) A cast meeting was called for Wednesday, March 7, to discuss what would happen next. Lincoln wanted to take a few weeks off, then come back with a grand farewell show, and let the Garrens end. While I wanted little involvement with such a project, I agreed to participate in some way if it came about.

In my conversations with Lincoln, he said I had misunderstood the situation. If Mary had come back and said she did not want me involved in the shows, Lincoln would have said, "Then we're not doing any shows." He was not planning to let Mary decide, he said. He was just waiting to see what she would say. If I had known this, I wouldn't have been so upset and quit.

By the time we got to that cast meeting, Lincoln had discussed it with Michael some more. Michael flatly refused to let the Garrens do any shows at BYU ever again. The last straw for him was the fact that people were discussing the ins and outs of it on my Web site. Mary had been singled out by name as someone who was against us (which was certainly accurate), and my readers, upset at how I'd been treated, were defending me by attacking her. In some cases, they had taken this in directions unwarranted by the situation, and I'm sure I was not blameless in allowing it to go on. This had bothered Mary and Michael in the extreme, and they said no more shows, ever.

We had the option of doing a farewell show off campus. But the cast, feeling quite demoralized now, didn't want to. Lincoln was hesitant anyway, not wanting to do anything to make it look like BYU had kicked us out, or that would seem like a slap in the face to the institution that had harbored us for so long.

THE FINAL CAST MEETING

That cast meeting was a sober one indeed. Everyone had gotten my e-mail, and had then received a call from Lincoln telling them of an important meeting. Cast members who were in "Richard III" rehearsals came to see if there would still be a Garrens Comedy Troupe when their Shakespeare was over.

At this point, I was very meek indeed. I regretted the e-mail I'd sent everyone and the harm it had done Lincoln and the group. As a result, I said little as Lincoln recounted for everyone present what had led up to all this. He began at the beginning of the history of the Garrens and explained how he'd never wanted to be a business owner in the first place, but how it had been the only way to keep the Garrens alive when they could not exist as a campus club any longer. He told them pretty much everything you've read in this document. For my part, I apologized for the e-mail and offered minor clarifications to Lincoln's narrative as he told it.

The cast was sad at there being no more shows available to us. We had three more Saturdays of all-improv shows at Provo Theatre Company, which long-time Garren Mark Berrett directed; we agreed to finish those out.

A curious thing happened at this meeting. The general tone of it, while as fair as Lincoln cared to make it, did not exactly make me look like a saint. That e-mail hadn't helped, either, despite my apologizing for it. And to wind things up, Lincoln talked about the "mean" e-mails I'd exchanged with Mary and Michael. He hadn't read them, but Mary had told him they were "mean," and that's what he passed on to the cast. My insisting they were blunt and forceful but not "mean" did no good; everyone already knew I was a jerk.

And so the tide had turned. We'd spent most of the semester angry with Mary for mistreating us, but now, all of a sudden, she was a holy, blameless, sacred creature who had never done anything wrong by us but who had nonetheless been abused by me in those "mean" e-mails. I, in turn, was no longer someone who had founded the Garrens, revitalized the group, boosted attendance, increased its popularity and almost single-handedly organized the most successful show we'd ever done (the eighth anniversary). No, I was now someone who had maliciously attacked Mary for no reason and who had ruined the Garrens.

Basically, the understanding everyone had was that my "mean" letters had made Student Life angry with us, and that's what had ruined everything. It was all my "mean" letters' fault.

Not true, of course. Had anyone understood the situation from the beginning they would have known my initial e-mail to Mary, while to-the-point and assertive, was not "mean." They would have also known that if she had just responded to my questions, all of this could be avoided.

But no. It was all my fault -- and in fact, everyone was now regretting ever being angry with Mary. (They apparently forgot how she came to our shows that week and tried to shut us down.) They talked about getting together as a group to apologize to her. Basically, Mary called me a liar, never had to answer for it, and the Garrens died ignobly.

With that cast meeting, the Garrens were over. I sent a statement out to our mailing list and the newspapers saying we'd decided to call it quits. (This was a really lovey-dovey statement, and it ignored all the actual reasons we were ending, because they were too unpleasant for public discourse. For my half of the e-mail, I spoke of the warm memories I had of the group. For Lincoln's half, he mostly promoted the upcoming Skinny Lincolns shows in Salt Lake City.)

The Garrens performed those last three all-improv shows at Provo Theatre Company. I had not usually been involved in those anyway, and with several cast members not having the fondest feelings toward me (particularly the ones who felt the group would have gotten along fine without me), I figured it best to continue staying out of them.

I came to the last half of the final show, however, on March 24. The place was packed, word having spread that this was everyone's last chance to see the Garrens Comedy Troupe, ever. I inched my way to the stage and sat among the other cast members. All were smiles and friendliness.

The final few improvs went fine; I honestly don't remember much about them. We ended, as had become our tradition, with a musical. I played the piano while cast members created a Broadway-style musical. The improv -- and the show, and the Garrens -- ended with Lincoln taking off his shirt and running bare-chested out the back door and into the night. In solidarity, I took off my shirt, too, and did the curtain call that way. It was a typical, funny, bizarre, non-sentimental ending. In other words, it was perfect.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

What do we learn from all this? Well, primarily, that communication is vital. Alicia should have told Lincoln she was having trouble paying Garrens bills every month. Mary should have responded to my questions about why she didn't trust me. I should have talked to Lincoln more to understand more clearly whether Mary was deciding if I could be in the shows still.

For that matter, it goes back even further. When I was on my mission, Lincoln should have told me he was turning the group into a business. (The fact that he did, and that he was its owner, all without including me, was a sore spot for five years.) When I got back, I should have expressed my displeasure in the situation right away, rather than waiting for years. Everyone should have talked more. Everyone should have listened more.

Am I sorry the Garrens ended? No. I firmly believe diminishing quality would have been a problem with me, Lincoln and Alicia all out of the picture, and there was no way I could have stayed with it. It was good to end while we were still on top and making people laugh. Though we did several more weeks of shows after it, the 8th Anniversary Spectacular was a perfect "final show," featuring as it did many former cast members and our absolute best material.

Am I sorry the Garrens ended the way it did? Yes. It was unpleasant and unfortunate. Lincoln, Mary and I were all to blame. I wouldn't hazard a guess who was most at fault, as the actions of any one of us would have been enough to kill things even without the help of the other two.

Lincoln and I agreed to forgive each other on a personal level, and to never work together again. Due to our both being human, though, some inevitable resentment lingered over the next few months. After some time had passed, Lincoln called me on the phone to say that while he'd been saying all along that it was water under the bridge, now he really meant it. Whatever I had done that wronged him, he had forgiven me for it. I felt the same way toward him. We truly were reconciled.

I will end this long treatise with the letter I wrote to the Garrens mailing list, e-mailed out shortly after that March 7 final cast meeting. Though it was originally appended to the lovey-dovey press release announcing our demise, I actually mean every single word of it....

When I held the first Garrens auditions in November 1992, I had no idea where it would go. I had daydreams about sold-out crowds, huge fame and piles of money. The fame and money never came, but the crowds did. And that was enough.

As with any eight-year project, there are some unpleasant memories. But the good ones far, far outweigh them. I have laughed more and enjoyed life more as a result of the Garrens. I have made lasting friendships.

I have seen marriages come when two Garrens fell in love with each other. When I see these couples -- there are three of them, where husband and wife met as Garrens -- and see their happiness, I am genuinely humbled to have been the one who started the group that led to it.

The philosophy of the Garrens was always just to be funny. We didn't care so much about making political statements, or bringing down The Establishment. Our attitude was, "Isn't life funny?"

In that sense, I hope we're all Garrens at heart. I hope we're all people who find the humor in life and let it lift our spirits. I hope the Garrens Comedy Troupe has had an impact for the good in your life. It certainly has in mine.

Sincerely,
Eric D. Snider