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The Lilting Banshees is a sketch comedy troupe at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

History
The Lilting Banshees were founded in 1993 by Ben Tomlin (class of 1994), Matt Jones (class of 1996), and a group of theatre students. Tomlin inadvertently contributed the troupe’s signature look, a white Oxford shirt and khakis, which later became the official uniform. The founding members based their name on a CD of Irish harp music that Tomlin found in the theatre department sound booth.

In 2019, The Lilting Banshees celebrated their 25th reunion. Over 40 alumni attended the reunion show, where they performed classic skits and unveiled a new fund in memory of alum James Buscher (class of ‘98), who died in a car accident in 2010.

Style and Content
Members of Lilting Banshees begin planning each show up to three months in advance. They meet multiple times per week to pitch potential sketches. Once there’s a sufficient number of ideas, the members host a “War Room” session where they must unanimously select the next skits to be performed by the group.

Previous topics have included the excessively long lines at Chick-Fil-A and how cavemen first discovered cow’s milk. The Lilting Banshees shows are known for having some sexually suggestive content.

Alumni
The Lilting Banshees have several notable alumni who have built upon their theatrical and comedic talents in other professional endeavors.

Dr. James Hamblin is the author of If Our Bodies Could Talk and a staff writer for The Atlantic. He has served as a moderator for the Precision Medicine Initiative and interviewed President Barack Obama.

Sarah Schneider wrote and acted for CollegeHumor prior to becoming a writer for Saturday Night Live. After leaving SNL in 2017, Sarah partnered with head writer Chris Kelly to create The Other Two, which premiered on Comedy Central in 2019.

Emma Hunsinger is a cartoonist with work appearing in a variety of publications. She currently holds the record for the longest comic to appear in The New Yorker after releasing a ten-page feature.