Our old pal Shenoah Allen became a cult favorite of New Mexico audiences as one half of the improv comedy duo The Pajama Men. Allen hooked up with his fellow performer Marc Chavez back in the ’90s when they attended La Cueva High School together. Dressed in their trademark pajamas, the duo spent decades crafting intricately oddball comedy sketches. From the stages of Tricklock Company’s raucous late-night cabaret, Reptilian Lounge, to the prestigious Melbourne International Comedy Festival to the famed Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Pajama Men impressed audiences and critics alike with their absurdist shows such as Versus vs. Versus, The Last Stand to Reason and 2 Men 3 Musketeers. In the years since, Allen and Chavez have drifted away from Albuquerque and into their own quirky corners of the world. Chavez is currently in Canada, while Allen now calls England home.
But Allen is returning to New Mexico to premiere his first feature film at this year’s Santa Fe International Film Festival (Oct. 16 through 20). Partnering up with renowned English comedian Nina Conti, Allen co-wrote and co-stars in Sunlight. The film is a dark, off-kilter comedy about a pair of people on the edge of life who find purpose and connection while fleeing their toxic past on a road trip across the American Southwest. Conti, it should be noted, spends most of the film dressed in a monkey costume.
We spoke to Allen via email just prior to his arrival back in New Mexico for the film’s big premiere screening on Oct. 19.
The Paper.: How did a New Mexico comic/writer/performer end up in England? And what are British comedians like? Are they more sophisticated? They sound more sophisticated. Or is that just the accent?
Shenoah Allen: It was a long and twisted path with lots of strange staircases. Over here (UK) I’ve sometimes found myself performing surreal sketch comedy in castles and in caves, and all that really suits my gothic sensibilities.
There’s a vibrant festival culture here which I was able to plug into as half of Pajama Men. Eventually the UK swallowed me up. I’ve been living in London for twelve years or so now, mainly because you can swim in the duck ponds.
Are British comedians more sophisticated? Well no, but I think comedy ranks a little higher (t)here as an art form. Comedy is always the less appreciated genre wherever you are, you never see comedy winning Oscars for example, but it gets a little more respect here and there are a lot more places to do it. Half the pubs in London have a little room upstairs with comedy nights happening in them. From the outside it looks like Albuquerque’s comedy scene has grown a lot in the last few years which is, as the really old kids say, rad.
How did you meet up with Nina Conti? She seems like a prolific performer over there. Where did the idea of doing a movie together come from?
There’s an annual dream/nightmare show here that’s about as culty as it gets, called the Improvathon. It’s an improv show that goes on for fifty hours and everyone stays awake for the whole thing. Its organizers claim sleep deprivation opens up the subconscious lizard brain in the improviser and, ya know, I think they’re right. Nina and I survived one of those together and discovered we had really good chemistry. Our desire to work together was born out of that. She did the fifty hours in the monkey suit, so in a way I got to know her as him. A few weeks later Nina texted me from an airplane and said, “Do you think you and monkey could be a film?” I
was thrilled by the prospect.
Sunlight was shot here in New Mexico. I assume that was your influence. Where did you shoot it and how long did it take?
I had some influence there, yes, because I don’t think Nina would have ended up in Albuquerque performing at Revolutions [International Theatre Festival] without my involvement. But I don’t know, sometimes I feel like all roads lead to Albuquerque. It was great to rediscover New Mexico through Nina’s directorial eyes. We wrote the film with New Mexico in mind from the beginning.
Our locations included Cubero Trading Post, Cowboys and Indians in Nob Hill, Tamaya, East Mountains, North Valley, some others. It’s a road movie so, um … lots of roads. Nothing further than an hour from Albuquerque. Well, one location was, but it would be a spoiler. The process started nearly six years ago. The shooting part was only 20 days.
You co-wrote the screenplay with Conti, but your background is in improv. How much of the film was mapped out and how much was created on the fly?
Improv played a major role in the writing process. We’d improvise scenes, mining for gold, which I then took and moulded [Ooh, look Shenoah is British!] into a screenplay — that underwent several surgeries from Nina’s editorial scalpel. In the end, we shot from a very tightly written script, but never in a million years would we have not allowed ourselves to improvise during the shoot, and there are whole sections that didn’t exist before the cameras started rolling.
Christopher Guest (This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman) was an executive producer on Sunlight. The guy is an improv movie legend. Did you actually work with him in a meaningful capacity, or was he just some Hollywood jerkbag who stuck his name on the film? I can handle the truth.
Haha! I see the glinting steel of your blade, good sir! Well I’m glad to be able to answer that CG has been a meaningful part of the process. Nina’s worked with him quite a bit in the past and he was a very constant lifeline for her as the director throughout this whole undertaking — and as he’s a total &;%$@! hero of mine, it’s amazing to have his involvement.
Sunlight will have its premiere screening on Saturday, Oct. 19 at 1 p.m. at the New Mexico History Museum (113 Lincoln Ave in Santa Fe). Tickets can be found here.