So You're a Man were a five-man comedy troupe, who performed in the mid-90s in both New Zealand and Australia. Members were

Bret McKenzie Bret Peter Tarrant McKenzie (born 29 June 1976) is a New Zealand musician, comedian, music supervisor, and actor. He is best known as one half of musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords along with Jemaine Clement. In the 2000s, the duo's c ...

Jemaine Clement Jemaine Atea Mahana Clement (born 10 January 1974) is a New Zealand actor, comedian, musician and filmmaker. He has released several albums with Bret McKenzie as the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, and created a comedy series of th ...

Taika Waititi Taika David Cohen (born 16 August 1975), known professionally as Taika Waititi ( ), is a New Zealand filmmaker, actor, and comedian. He is a recipient of an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Grammy Award, and has received two nominations at ...

, actor Carey Smith and theatre director David Lawrence. They met as members of the Drama Club at

Victoria University of Wellington Victoria University of Wellington ( mi, Te Herenga Waka) is a university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand. The university is well kno ...

, (where Clement, Waititi and Lawrence were studying theatre and film, and McKenzie classics and music) and first appeared as a quintet in a segment of a show called 'Bodyplay', conceived and directed by Duncan Sarkies. 'So You're A Man' premiered at

The Basement Theatre The Basement Theatre is an Auckland theatre founded by Charlie McDermott in 2008. The theatre focuses on providing a venue for young people in the performing arts to enter the industry. Their priorities are making theatre accessible for both ...

in Auckland in May 1996, played a sell-out season at

BATS Theatre BATS Theatre is a theatre venue in Wellington, New Zealand. Initially founded as the Bats Theatre Company in 1976, then established in its current form in 1989. BATS Theatre has seen the development of many performing arts talents of New Zeala ...

in Wellington in October/November 1996, and then a month at the Last Laugh in Melbourne, Australia in March/April 1997, with one-off performances and university Orientation gigs in between. The show was a 1950s-style mockumentary guide to coping with manhood, covering such topics as proper urinal etiquette, interactions with women, facial hair,

personal grooming Grooming (also called preening) is the art and practice of cleaning and maintaining parts of the body. It is a species-typical behavior. In animals Individual animals regularly clean themselves and put their fur, feathers or other skin cov ...

and how to find the clitoris. The five actors performed in flesh-coloured 'nudie-suits' and all played the guitar. This group was a precursor to both The Humourbeasts and

Flight of the Conchords Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand musical comedy duo formed in Wellington in 1998. The band consists of multi-instrumentalists Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Beginning as a popular live comedy act in the early 2000s, the duo's come ...

. The group has been mentioned in a number of media articles about the Flight of the Conchords, in both the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

and Sydney Morning Herald.Sydney Morning Herald article
/ref> After the Melbourne comedy festival, where they played on the same bill as Simon Pegg, Ed Byrne, Tommy Tiernan and Peepolykus, the group broke up to pursue other interests.

References

Sources

* http://www.nzonscreen.com/person/jermaine-clement/biography * http://www.hwwilson.com/Currentbio/cover_bios/cover_bio_3_08.htm

New Zealand comedy troupes New Zealand comedians Australian comedy troupes Australian comedians Quintets {{NewZealand-stub