Thursday night live

Student-run variety show premiers to more than 3,000 viewers, featuring skits on life at Liberty and a live cow

 

“After Curfew,” Liberty University’s first student-run variety show, premiered Thursday, Feb. 2 at midnight to more than 3,000 students on Facebook Live.

By Saturday morning, the pilot episode had more than 6,000 views.

Showrunner Stephen Cook, a junior cinematic arts student, leads a cast and crew of 70 students to produce Liberty’s unique version of late-night shows similar to “Saturday Night Live.”

“If you get easily offended, the show is not for you,” Cook said.

“When it comes to Thursday nights at midnight, you have to be more entertaining to someone than Xbox. It can’t just be normal humor — you have to push the envelope.”

Cook and Abby Michael co-host the show, which features a variety of segments that poke fun at Liberty’s campus culture.

The video clips and live skits draw from material ranging from “The Bachelor” and LARPing to Virginia weather and leggings.

Michael, a junior fashion design student, said she hopes the show can bring some levity to a campus environment that can seem stifling to some students.

“When you go to Liberty, you’re always surrounded by Sunday school things, and there’s many students here that aren’t too thrilled about all the rules of Liberty,” Michael said.

“So we’re trying to reach the students that are here because their parents want them to be.”

“After Curfew” had already caught the interest of hundreds of Liberty students before the spring semester began.

At the time the pilot episode aired, their Facebook page had close to 1,600 likes.

Around 150 students attended the live recording of the pilot at Towns Auditorium Jan. 26.

On Feb. 2, students enjoyed the live recording of the second episode that featured David Wheeler and members of the Liberty Worship Collective.

“I loved it,” sophomore Bethany Bertrand said.

“It reminded me of ‘The Carol Burnett Show.’ You could really see the characters in every skit.”

Wheeler, who starred in a video segment titled “Third Wheeler” during the Valentine’s Day-themed episode, said he hopes “After Curfew” encourages Liberty students to learn to laugh at themselves tastefully.

“Anytime you can laugh, I think it’s a joy — particularly when you can laugh at yourself,” Wheeler said.

For Cook, this show has been in the back of his mind since he was a part of Coffeehouse more than two years ago.

“Freshman year I was lucky enough to be a part of the brainstorming team for Christmas Coffeehouse, and I thought, ‘Man, why don’t we do this more? We should have our own variety show here at Liberty,’” Cook said.

Cook said he pitched the show to Senior Vice President of Spiritual Development David Nasser in 2015.

However, when the Office of Spiritual Development was restructured in the summer of 2016, “After Curfew” branched off into an entirely independent organization.

“The direction we were going and where (OSD) was going with advertising and social media didn’t work out,” Cook said.

“Now we’re purely student-run and student-led, but they have been a phenomenal help even today with reaching out to other Liberty social accounts.”

Cook, Michael, and a cast of eight other students spent the spring and fall of 2016 writing 12 episodes for the first season.

“All we do is, we sit in a room and laugh a bunch,” Cook said.

“When something’s really good, we write it down.”

Although the brainstorming process came naturally, Cook said the execution of a project this size presented several hurdles.

Cook worked with the production team to create a business plan that involved filing as a non-profit organization, finding multiple investors, and purchasing all the necessary equipment.

While finding the time for 70 students to work together has also been a challenge, Executive Producer Jared Hardy said the cast and crew have been completely dedicated since the beginning.

“We all have class, and then after class it’s right to “After Curfew” — whether it’s planning, meetings, writing segments or performing,” Hardy, a junior cinematic arts student, said.

“Then we go to bed, and we do the same thing the next day.”

Through “After Curfew,” many cinematic arts students like Hardy and Cook have gained hands-on experience in the field of television production.

“There’s so many talented people on campus,” Hardy said.

“Just getting to meet them, work with them, and give them an opportunity to build their skills has been great.”

Cook, Hardy and Michael all hope that the show will continue on and become a staple of Liberty’s culture even after they graduate.

Cook said the writing team is working on the second season for the fall of 2017.

Michael said he hopes “After Curfew” can use humor to unite Liberty students in the midst of an often tumultuous period of life.

“What’s special about this is that it’s mainly just for Liberty students,” Michael said.

“Not every college student experiences these things we do that we can all make fun of. Hopefully it will bring a little bit of joy during a stressful time in life.”

Cook’s desire is that “After Curfew” will bring the student body laughter that is rooted in the authentic joy of Christ.

“A lot of humor in the world is deflection from sadness or anxiety or depression,” Cook said.

“I don’t want this to be a cover-up or something that pushes that aside. I want it to be genuine joy and laughter that the show provides for the school.”

The second episode of “After Curfew” will air Feb. 9 on Facebook Live at wwww.facebook.com/luaftercurfew.

Covey is a news reporter.