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 com ...

, Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, 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 (), also known by its shorter names "VUW" or "Vic", is a public university, public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of New Zealand Parliament, Parliament, and w ...

, (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 in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

in May 1996, played a sell-out season at BATS Theatre 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 c ...

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. 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'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

and

Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in ...

.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 Australian comedy troupes Quintets {{NewZealand-culture-stub