Two of the finest sketch teams in the city, Oh Theodora and Drew's Tumbler, have teamed up to produce a new monthly show at The Public House Theatre, an exciting new theater space catered towards sketch comedy. The show is called Finish Your Dinner and the show's seven producers sent over this exclusive look behind the scenes at their most reverential preshow ritual. The first Finish Your Dinner is tonight, April 4th, at 8pm; each ticket comes with a free can of PBR and can be purchased here.
Read MoreThe Cool Kids’ Table
Oh Theodora's Trevor Martin is a five year veteran of the annual Chicago SketchFest, which just wrapped up it's 12th edition this past weekend. The city's independent sketch scene is small (but growing), so a festival boasting over 150 sketch shows in eight days is obviously going to be a big to-do amongst all involved. Some sketch folks sit it out entirely (like Brian from the Mike's Hard Festivade), and others fully embrace it. Trevor's sent over some thoughts about the festival and how his relationship with it has changed.
Read MoreThe Telethon travels 8 years backwards
The Telethon is a semi-serialized nightmare/sci-fi/variety show. Sal Stevens, a Jerry Lewis/Gene Rayburn-esque professional host, and Marty Fleming, a squirmy, indecisive college kid, are forced by mysterious agents to host a fundraising telethon twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It’s part The Prisoner and part Mystery Science Theater, but mostly it’s an excuse for us to do all of the silly things we want on stage. Our next episode, Bush to the Future is a particularly silly one; Marty uses a time machine and travels to 2004 to make sure John Kerry wins the election.
This one’s been in the works for a while. The real true impetus for it was a shared love of George W. Bush jokes among all of us in the group. There are no politics in that enjoyment really, and it’s hard to pin down why I enjoy it so much. But if someone makes a Rock Against Bush joke I am on board, absolutely, always. We wanted to highlight that humor somehow, so we decided to do an episode set during the 2004 election. The 2000 election is too contentious and too important. No, we insisted, if we’re going to have an episode where a Bush presidency has to be stopped, it must be in 2004.
Then there was a happy coincidence. We realized Marty Fleming was named after Marty McFly, and like Venus emerging from the sea, our Back to the Future show appeared to us fully formed. Marty would stand in for Marty, of course. Sal Stevens would be our Doc Brown. John Kerry would be George McFly and Bush would be Biff. It was all so obvious. Here is a madlibs synopsis of Back to the Future, with our own Bush to the Future changes inserted:
Marty Fleming uses an experimental time machine to travel from 2012 to 2004. There, he meets a younger version of his wacky friend Doctor Sal Stevens, and runs into wimpy John Kerry. John Kerry desperately wants to be noticed by Uncle Sam, but is constantly being bullied by George W. Bush. Things go from bad to worse when Uncle Sam shows a romantic interest in Marty Fleming. Marty desperately tries to fix everything at the Under The Sea Debate, where, with some luck, he’ll be able to get Uncle Samarty’s mom to kisvote for GeorJohn Kerry and change the future for the better!
We have some great folks joining us, too. Our old friend and fellow Bush-joke-lover Sean Rose will be playing Dubya, and Oh Theodora’s own Trevor Martin will be doing his best George McFly impression/worst John Kerry impression. The extremely funny Drew’s Tumbler will be performing a sketch set, and our favorite handsome man Joe McAdam has an all-2004 stand-up set all ready to go.
It’s going to be a great night of silly jokes and awful impressions. Hope to see you there!
...at the Playground Theater, 3209 North Halsted Street, at Midnight,11/3, for $5.
-Stephen Winchell
AN ADMITTEDLY WORDY REVIEW OF THE GREATEST SHOW YOU’VE EVER BEEN INSTRUCTED TO ADMIRE.
The Steamroller's Theatrical Critic (and Oh Theodora member) Trevor Martin checks in with a review of last month's landmark staging of Phillip Glass' Einstein On The Beach in New York City.
I’m the type of person who will readily admit to enjoying surrealist or absurdist theater. I should point out, though, that the key word to that previous sentence is “admit”. While I like the challenge of deciphering puzzling performance art, I know there are connotations that come with declaring one’s interest in “theatery theater”: that I turn my nose up at linear storytelling, or regard “funny ha-ha” as leagues below “funny, ah yes”, or that I use words like “connotations” and “aligning” when writing for local comedy blogs. In reference to me, such assumptions would only be 33.3% correct. But I know that they much more accurately describe a certain collection of theatergoers, which keeps me from talking about my interest in the abstract with just anyone.
So when I heard that Robert Wilson was remounting his legendary avant-garde opera Einstein on the Beach, I immediately knew that 1) I absolutely had to see it and 2) I was absolutely going to be seeing it by myself. The things I knew about Einstein were limited to passing mentions in Theater classes and a few YouTube clips. But the show’s reputation--coupled with the fact that it won’t be remounted for decades, if ever again--was enough to push me to buy a ticket, hop a plane to New York City and bear witness to an event that truly left me at a loss for words.
Oh no wait, here’s one: Garbage. Pompous, unforgivable garbage.
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