It’s dark. The only things lit on stage are two armchairs, the kind you might find in my grandmother’s living room, and microphones. A woman wearing what looks like a purple bra with sleeves over a black t-shirt ambles up the stairs and quietly says “Welcome to the date rape prevention seminar…please no anal and please abstain from date rape ever.”
How else would a live show made by two dudes best known for creating a mouthy milkshake, cooler-than-thou French fries and a talking ball of mystery meat start the night? Playing to a sold-out crowd this past Saturday, David Willis and Dana Snyder—co-creators of the long-running Adult Swim show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force—brought the first-ever stage rendition of the show to Lakeshore Theater…well, sort of. Despite the title Aqua Teen Hunger Force Live, only about half of the 2.5-hour show (the better half we might add) was devoted to the actual cartoon. Sure it was cool to see the voices of Shake, Meatwad and Carl come to life and super cool to watch the real Meatwad critique audience members doing amateur impersonations of the character, but the best part of the show was getting to see Snyder and Willis’ live clips. In addition to showing snippets from Snyder’s serious acting gigs, which includes a one-line spot on ER (Snyder showed it three times), the pair also screened several Funny Or Die-style live action clips that were so hysterical they put Aqua Teen to shame (one of which is available in two parts: one and two. If the part where Willis asks Snyder if he’d like to change the line “Nothing a good butthole massage can’t fix” to “Nothing a good fannyport massage can’t fix” doesn’t get you, don’t even bother reading the rest of this review).
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In the opening number for Improviser! The Musical, we see an iO Harold team take an audience suggestion and begin a scene based around it. But wait, no one is initiating the scene. There is only silence as the nine ensemble members wait for someone else to begin. In the audience there is bewilderment. It’s a Harold team’s worst nightmare and it forms the premise for Improviser!, an utterly joyful if trivial musical parody of the mad, mad world of making it as an improviser. Del would be amused.
Given that we’ve seen solo improv, Elizabethan improv, musical improv, Tarentino improv, Jane Austen improv, improv based around deep, dark secrets, competitive improv, drinking improv and on and on and on, a parody of the whole shebang was bound to happen. Improviser! captures it right down to lampooning the fundamentals of the art form including yes-and-ing, making bold choices, strong initiations and so forth.
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Credit Prop 8 rage, empty campaign promises or just an extended absence (the company’s last show was 2007’s iHOLE), for the particularly sharp talons on The Audacity of Nope or How I Fell for a Pansy Scheme (which opened last night at Strawdog in Lakeview), the latest sketch comedy revue from queer jokesters GayCo.
In the opening sketch, for example, the fuss over gay marriage is brought front and center as a male couple in the Hawkeye state frets over the doldrums of domestic life. “I want the free rings, but not the baggage they bring,” one groom laments. The solution? Marry in Iowa for wedded bliss, but cross back over the Illinois border for bachelorhood.
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The Second City e.t.c won three well-deserved Jeff Awards Monday night for its latest sketch show, Studs Terkel’s Not Working. In the revue category it took home awards for best production, best director Matt Hovde and best actress Amanda Blake Davis. I loved the show and Davis especially stood out among the excellent ensemble. The e.t.c. revues have been rocky of late, so it’s a joy to see the theater back in fine form. The Second City also won a tribute award in honor of its 50th anniversary year.
Speaking of which, the Second City is celebrating its 50th anniversary weekend with a series of panel discussion the weekend of December 12-13. It announced the full lineup yesterday. Tickets for each panel are $25 and will be available for purchase at The Second City Theater Box Office at 312-337-3992 beginning today at 10am and online at secondcity.com. Here is the complete lineup with my geeky thoughts and opinions included.
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Second City fans of a certain vintage may recall the ballyhoo during every mainstage performance about other shows at the theater, including the long-gone weekend children’s show, which was promoted, to general laughter among adult audiences, as “Sunday, Sunday, the little bastards’ fun day.” Well, those fun days are about to come back, you lucky little bastards:
Second City is set to debut the kids’ show Hogwash in the de Maat Theater on the third floor of Pipers Alley Nov. 8. Tickets will be $10 a pop (and a mom and a kid). The new 50-seat theater is named after late instructor Martin de Maat. (Disclosure: I took classes from Martin at Players Workshop of the Second City in the ’80s and also performed in one of the Second City kids’ shows back in the day.)
Hogwash is an improv show for kids that’s been around a while–in fact, we profiled it in the very first issue of TOC. But Kerry Sheehan, president of Second City Training Centers & Education Programs, told me recently, “We’re going to do our own Second City productions” in the space as well. I spoke with Sheehan for a story in the next issue of Time Out Chicago Kids, which will be out next month, so watch for our roundup of improv classes for little bastards boys and girls.
That’s the message America’s favorite D-lister asked fans to take away from her sold-out show at the Chicago Theatre tonight. Crowing about being unbanned from CBS’ The Late Show, Kathy Griffin confided that she did the deed with Letterman–and then asked everyone in the audience to pass the deets along to the tabs. It was just part of a raucous raunchfest that had the joint hooting all evening.
So, of course, I took my mother-in-law, Marsha. She’s a teacher, in town from the Twin Cities for the weekend. Can you say awkward?
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Opening a brand new stand-up show to a near sold-out crowd at Congress Theater last night, Cross came armed with a new book, a new pilot and a solid two hours of new material filled with the same deadpan cynicism that won him acclaim on Mr. Show With Bob and Dave. Obligatory photo:
Photo by Marina Chavez
Now imagine that exact look on a child version of David Cross. That’s how the show opened – with a mini version of Cross coming on stage, reassuring the audience in true Cross-ian style that “I’m pretty sure God’s told a few white lies, mainly to cancer patients” then stomping off stage in a rage. When the real Cross took the stage, singing a Frank Sinatra-style opening song wherein he promised to “rip comedy a new asshole and then fill that new asshole with jokes,” all knew it would be true.
And lo it was. Cross spent the next hour forty-five touching on his
trademark subjects—religion, politics, ridiculous products, SkyMall— in the same style as his 2004 Grammy-nominated album, Shut Up, You Fucking Baby! (In fact, Cross might have given a nod to the album’s second track “Austin Powers Saying ‘Yeah Baby’” by planting a dude dressed like…go ahead, take a guess…that’s right…in the lobby before the show just to make guests uncomfortable).
Despite Arrested Development’s cult following, stints in TV series ranging from Human Giant to Law and Order: Criminal Intent and a purportedly smokin’ hot relationship with Amber Tamblyn, Cross is still pretty damn cynical. Material went from a self-deprecating story about shitting himself while walking his dog to misconceptions about health-care reform (“Every Thursday in Canada is Grandmother Killing Day”) to the Mona Lisa of awful porn titles—a real film titled My Ass Is Haunted. As in previous shows, Cross’s true and most polarizing trump card is his biting criticism of religion, specifically Judaism and Christianity. Case in point: “Whenever I see [Orthodox Jews] walking around in wool from the 18th century, I thank God for letting me not believe in you because they really believe in you and they’re in that and I’m in shorts eating a hot dog.”
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The line between the groggy, funny Mike Birbiglia onstage and the hungry and exhausted one nibbling from a vegetable tray in his tour bus moments later is a thin one, I’m happy to report. I ended up in said bus (warning: stargazer alert) because I attended his sold-out show at the Vic on Saturday night with a posse that included folks friendly with the comic from way back when. Turns out, he’s a nice guy. He chatted amiably with a bunch of us about his old D.C. improv troupe the Regal Beagles and how he once sat through a marathon night of improv at iO (a bit much, he said, but he loved TJ & Dave). He also seemed thrilled to be touring. After turning in 42,000 words of a manuscript he’s been working on (a book version of his off-Broadway show Sleepwalk with Me), he seemed happy to be on the road and in front of audiences with his latest show, I’m in the Future Also. The audience at the Vic seemed to think the feeling was mutual.
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Desperate isn’t exactly the right word to describe Lucy Bauer’s new one-woman sketch show at Gorilla Tango. Likable might be a better adjective, or perhaps adorable, if it’s not too offensive. But if you’re born and raised in New York, attended college in sun-kissed Honolulu, studied improvisation with two of the finest improv schools in the world (iO and the Second City Conservatory) and are in your midtwenties, what exactly about your life thus far screams desperation? Not much, as we learn in Bauer’s short show in which the able performer mixes sketch and improvisation to generally desirable effects.
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American Idol winner Fantasia has received rave reviews for her lead performance, both on Broadway and on tour, in The Color Purple, which hits the Arie Crown Theatre Wednesday 2–Sunday 6. Around Town intern D.L. Hopkins got a few minutes with Fantasia this afternoon following a press conference to announce the show’s new fundraising effort for a Hurricane Katrina relief charity.
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