Broken Lizard is an American comedy troupe that comprises 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; the team however does not have any single leader and they work collaboratively when choosing material and writing projects. History The group formed at Colgate University in 1989 when Jay Chandrasekhar was asked by a friend and fellow student, Ira Liss, 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. After graduation, the members reunited in New York City and spent the next few years performing at various clubs, mostly Greenwich Village mainstay The Duplex, under the name "Broken Lizard". The group offered various explanations of the origin of this moniker over the years, ranging from a euphemism for loss of virility to a tribute to Chandrasekhar's pet allergies. Most recently, the members admitted that Chandrasekhar simply made up the name "off the top of his head" when he had their first flyer printed. Another possible name that was discarded was "Chocolate Speedo". Broken Lizard spent the next few years performing at clubs and college campuses. Its membership dwindled to the five current performers. By the mid-1990s, the group's interests shifted away from live material as they became more interested in filmed content. They wrote and acted in Dante's Levels of Hell, a series of interstitial shorts for Comedy Central's "Is This On?" feature. At this time, the Broken Lizard members also made their first foray into long-form film, shooting the 30-minute 16 mm project, The Tinfoil Monkey Agenda, an absurdist media spoof that earned them a trip to the Ft. Lauderdale Film Festival, and cemented in the group's minds that they should be creating full-length feature films. The group put together the script for their next feature, and first wide-release movie Super Troopers. The film, which portrays rural highway patrolmen as regular guys desperate to make their jobs entertaining, was shot in 2000, and was also invited to Sundance, where raucous screenings earned the film a distribution deal from