Josh: We've been approached by a lot of people, especially at [the US Comedy Arts Festival in] Aspen who said, "Hey, great, send us all your head shots," and it's easier to say right then, "We don't do that. We're sticking together as a group." And then the cynical industry people say, "You know, it's going to be really hard to do that. It's going to be really hard to stay together as a group. People are going to want each one of you, and how are you going to turn down $10,000 for a guest shot on a sitcom?" And you say, "Well, maybe $10,000 doesn't matter that much now that I have to compromise everything. Maybe I'll wait five years to compromise."

Mike: If one of the Fershners left for like six months, the rest of the Fershners would continue and move on, and if six or eight months later, the rest of the Fershners had developed something and were parlaying it into a television special or a series of specials or something, the other Fershner would very likely be begging to get back in at that point, and it would be really uncomfortable for everybody. For them and for the rest of the group to try to figure out what to do. "You went off on your own, and now you're back? What's up?" That kind of thing.

Mark: I think we all realize, from performing together for so long, that we create better together than we do apart.

Mike: All of us have friends who are actors out there on their own, trying to "make it," and they get little bites. You know, they get a really small role somewhere, and they're flying high for a couple of weeks, and then suddenly they're like, "What's my next thing going to be?" We, as a group, meet almost every day and write together and create together and argue and nitpick over things and--

Josh: Kiss.

AL: [laughs] Josh likes to kiss everybody at the beginning of meetings.

Mark: He has his favorites, though.

Josh: Yes, I do.

Mike: If you're out there as a solo performer, you have yourself as your support system and quite possibly you have an agent or a manager as a support person. But when you're a group, you have everybody in the group supporting you. Right now, we're all supporting the fact that we have this theatrical endeavor happening, and some other things are on hold, and we're supporting each other and saying, "It's totally okay that we're not opening on Broadway this week. It's totally okay that we don't have a television series right now. We're moving forward toward our goal."

AL: Are you working on a Broadway show?

Joey: Yeah. A big, splashy Broadway show.

Josh: That's what it's called.

Joey: BIG SPLASHY [laughter.]

Josh: It's about the antics of the swimming pool over summer vacation.

AL: That would be good, actually.

Josh: Sort of like the CADDYSHACK of free swim.

Joey: There's an instructional swimming dance that we do, and the audience participates. But they have to be at least, you know...

Josh: Above the guppy level.

Mike: We'll get Patti LuPone to play the swimming coach. We were going to get Faye Dunaway and then Glenn Close. And Betty Buckley.

AL: I do find your group dynamic sort of fascinating. How much do you guys check in with each other at meetings, in terms of emotional stuff?

Josh: We get into touchy-feely conversations spontaneously. Actually, Joey and I were talking to each other a couple of weeks ago...

Joey: About Mark. And we ripped him to shreds. So I recorded the conversation and I'll play it for you now.

Josh: ...and we were talking about how we should have a big open discussion about a bunch of stuff. But we haven't gotten around to it. Because we're trying to put on a show and we'll do it when we're done. But what does happen a lot is two people talk about this situation and three people talk about that situation and it usually gets back to the whole group and everybody discusses it. At the same time, I think every person in the group can talk to another person about something. It's never like these two people aren't getting along at all and can't speak to each other. Every member of the group can bitch about everyone else to any other member of the group, which is healthy, I think, in a warped way.

Joey: It's in the code of the Fershners that if you hear something said about someone, you have to tell that person, in a roundabout, kind of confusing way, and kind of just hint toward it and not really address the issue.

Mike: We don't actually have an encounter-group process, where you actually say, "Okay, now everyone has to say one good thing and one bad thing." The reason we don't do anything like that is because I think the minimum amount of time that any two people have known each other is probably seven years or something. Knowing each other that well and having that much history forces you to operate very much like a family. You do have spats and quarrels and things, but you don't actually have to sit down at the dinner table and draw straws and see who is going to complain about something first. It just comes out. And it usually comes out at inconvenient times.

Mark: But we're also good at encouraging one another. I mean it's not like we bitch about each other all the time.

Everyone: Go Mark...good job.

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