Broken Lizard

Broken Lizard is an American comedy troupe, consisting of five friends, best known for its films, including Super Troopers and Beerfest. Its five members are Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske. They collaborate on the screen-writing, acting and productions of their films, with Chandrasekhar and Heffernan being the primary directors. Broken Lizard does not have a single executive producer who serves as team captain and chooses its material.

History

The group formed at Colgate University in 1990 when Jay Chandrasekhar was asked by a student theater director to put together a comedy show. Chandrasekhar agreed and assembled a sketch comedy troupe which included Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter and Erik Stolhanske, all members of the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity. The team performed a combination of live stage sketches and short videos under the name Charred Goosebeak. Charred Goosebeak continues to exist at Colgate to this day.

As they graduated, the members reunited in New York City, and spent the next few years performing at various clubs, mostly Greenwich Village mainstay The Duplex, under a new name: Broken Lizard. (The group offered varied explanations of the origin of this moniker over the years, ranging from describing it as a euphemism for the loss of virility to a tribute to Chandrasekhar's pet allergies. Most recently, the members admitted that after a marathon idea session that resulted in agreeing on the name...
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