By WICF Editor Liz McKeon Aliza Shapiro's Truth Serum Productions has been running "TraniWreck" in the Boston area since 2004. After this year's July show, Shapiro was admitted to the hospital having suffered a stroke caused by a cerebral hemorrhage. "Traniwreck" continues, and tonight, Friday, Sept. 16, 2011, Boston's own award-winning, "rabble-rousing, hot gender-blending mess of a cabaret variety show" will also be a benefit for Shapiro. They promise drag, burlesque, performance art, aerials, and "other uncategorizable, inexplicable phenomena." Local artists and performers have donated raffle prizes, and the proceeds benefit to Aliza's Brain Trust.
In case you missed it, in your turkey and stuffing-induced haze, submissions for WICF 2011 opened yesterday ! You have until January 6th to get them in, so head on over here and get started on show and workshop proposals. Good luck!
Also announced yesterday were our Third Annual Women in Comedy Festival headliners, Morgan Murphy and Jen Kirkman ! Both women are amazing stand ups, and both are currently late-night writers, Morgan writing for "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon," and Jen writing for (and appearing on) "Chelsea Lately."
Jen Kirman and Morgan Murphy, WICF 2011 headliners.
Here's what we think will get you through the rest of the long weekend, during your breaks from putting together submissions:
We've got two suggestions for your extra days off! First, the media page of stand up Anjela Johnson's site is chock full of the comedian's videos. Johnson, a California native of Mexican and Native American descent, has been an Oakland Raiders cheerleader, a “MADtv” series regular, and performed in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel with Justin Long, Anna Faris, and Amy Poehler, and Our Family Wedding, in which she appeared alongside America Ferrera, Carlos Mencia, Regina King, and Forest Whitaker.
Second, check out the visual humor and cerebral art on display at the web home of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian exhibit, "Indian Humor." The show has toured nationally, and is a witty and irreverent attempt at documenting a very-much living culture.
An improvised musical in the audience's chosen genre is narrated as if it had been written by Charles Dickens. The Un-Scripted Theater Company improvises a full-length musical, supplying the slyly witty and now-canonical Dickensian flourishes readers of A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol will recognize and applaud.
Cast: Joy Begbie, Mandy Khoshnevisan, Melissa Holman, Merrill Gruver, Christian Utzman, Alan Goy, Greg Shilling, Michael Fleming, Paul Kursky, and Scott Keck Directed by: Mandy Khoshnevisan Assistant-directed by: Christian Utzman Music by: Jacob Russell-Snyder
http://un-scripted.com/ for tickets Runs Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays (no shows Sat. 11/20, Thurs. 11/25), special shows Mon.-Wed. 12/20-12/22, $20/$10 students & seniors Shows at 8 p.m., and also at 3 p.m. Saturdays
Have you seen it yet? The new Harry Potter? Well don’t tell us what happens, Liz is trying to show her boyfriend all six of the previous movies before they go to see this one, that poor bastard.
You are so close to having submissions and headliner announcements rained down on you, you have no idea. At this point, we’re just waiting until you’re absolutely breathless with anticipation. Soon, pookies, soon.
Here’s what you should do if last night’s midnight Harry Potter showing just wasn’t enough for you animals:
The web home of the former University of Michigan students whose “A Very Potter Musical” was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Viral Videos of 2009, the site serves as a portal to all three of their full-length musicals on YouTube, complete links to the group’s online presence, and updates on what’s coming down the pike. Satiate your Potter-lust with their original musical, which lovingly lampoons J. K. Rowling’s Potter books one, four, six, and seven (roughly), and then move on to “A Very Potter Sequel,” which rewrites the epilogue so they can cover books one, three, and five.
The cast and crew have serious musical theater chops, and their productions read like the full-length versions of spoofs lifted from Christopher Guest movies. For those of you who haven’t seen “AVPM” or “AVPS,” you might recognize StarKid’s “Harry” as Darren Criss, “Glee”’s newest regular cast member.
Show to See Tig’s for the Giving: Tig Notaro and Very Special Guests (with Jen Kirman), Largo at The Coronet, Los Angeles, CA
Tig Notaro has been seen on “The Sarah Silverman Program,” “Last Comic Standing,” “Dog Bites Man,” and a whole bunch of talk shows and tours. She’ll also perform on “The Benson Interruption” and “Community.” Notaro’s unique presence and voice have made her a comic’s comic, and she pays it forward by hosting a monthly Tig & Friends show at the Largo at The Coronet.
This month, catch Jen Kirkman, writer and roundtable guest on “Chelsea Lately,” as one of her friends.
Aah! It’s November! If you haven’t gotten lost in a corn maze and scared the crap out of your best friend/significant other/children yet, I advise you to do so ASAP, before you lose your chance for the year. Posthaste. Off with you.
Thanks again to Christine Cuddy again for interviewing with us in advance of opening night of the run of her (undoubtedly-brilliant) two-woman show with Megan Goltermann, OBV! She answered scintillating questions, such as “Beer or whiskey” with aplomb. Next week, we’ll feature interviews with some awesome Austin, TX comedy acts, so keep refreshing our site until you see those.
Easing into the end of fall, here's our weekly website and show recommendations to take your mind off of things:
Beaton is a Nova Scotia-born cartoonist with a degree in History and Anthropology, and you can see its influence all over her work. The comics on Hark! A Vagrant illustrate a brilliantly witty, modern-day take on historical true-life and literary figures, and after every comic, I have one of those “Oh, duh! Of course it was like that, obviously” moments. Of course one of his daughters should have checked King Lear into a psychiatric hospital, if modern-day ones existed then. Obviously, the uptight Victorians were having lots of sexy sex, they just didn’t write about it for the public eye. I’d go so far as to call Kate Beaton the Howard Zinn of web comics, with a dash of the absurd thrown in, for health. Plus, she has a Breakfast Glam coffee mug for sale that cracks me up every time I see it.
Show to See
Parallelogramophonograph Presents: The Spectacle, at The Hideout Theatre, Austin, TX
Parallelogramophonograph, in residence at The Hideout, have been performing together for over 5 years and have toured throughout the U.S. and Canada. The winners of the 2009 B. Iden Payne Award for Outstanding Achievement in Improvisational Theatre, they specialize in improvising full-length plays. Pgraph’s range is startling, when viewed all at once: they’ve created or mastered the formats ERIS 2035, Dick & Jane, GRIMM: Improvised Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, Some Like it Improvised, Villainy, French Farce, Family Portrait, PGraph Presents: The 1930s, After School Improv, and The Traveler, among others. Check out their website for the full descriptions. Parallelogramophonograph is Kareem Badr, Kaci Beeler, Roy Janik, and Valerie Ward.
This week, The Spectacle also features the comedic wit of Firth&Arjet. Jessica Arjet and Kristin Firth present, “Always a Bridesmaid…” Check them out at their site for more info.
Happy Halloween! Do your thing, WICF readers, and send us some funny photos or write-ups of your weekend shenanigans. But only if you want to. I want to thank Rachel Rosenthal again for speaking with us about her awesome and hilarious (and instructional!) site Bridesmaiding.com. Next week, we'll have plenty of new info. for you about the 2011 festival, so keep checking us out — we're looking good!
For this holiday weekend, here's another bloody show and a wonderful website for your perusal:
Beti Gathegi's site, newly-launched this past September, chronicles the stories of women from all walks of life whom Beti admires and is amazed by. Including video profiles, an advice section, interviews with women from all sorts of careers, a gadget girl section, and an inspiration board, Beti's nascent site is an aspirational, inspirational work-in-progress. She says, "I really want to build and be a part of a community that is discussing dynamic women, interesting careers and other fascinating topics, so this is my contribution to that conversation." This week, Poly Republic profiles Wild 'N Out and Comedy Central's Rasika Mathur. Mathur is releasing her new comedy album "The Sari (W)rap" on November 2, and she will be featured in the upcoming movie The Taqwacores, based on the Michael Muhammad Knight book of the same name.
UCB's Halloween show about the an evil spirit from Hell who returns to wreak vengeance and cover their nightly audiences with blood. Lots and lots of blood. No worries, though, true believers, because according to the site, "the beast only slaughters those who are rife with selfishness, greed, hatred, and a few people who just suck." Written by Matt Walsh, and directed by John Frusciante.
It’s been a great week over here at the Women in Comedy Festival blog: We’ve put out a call for writers (contact editor@womenincomedyfestival.com if you’re interested!) and we’re looking for feedback from you, our lovely readers (email info@womenincomedyfestival.com for suggestions for next year’s fest!) as we’re gearing up to open submissions for the 2011 festival next month! I’d also like to thank Kristin Cook, Associate Producer at Sesame Workshop, for giving me the opportunity to write what I humbly consider to be the perfect blog post: an interview with a charming lady who has an awesome job, accompanied by videos of Grover, Isaiah Mustafa and a Mad Men parody. (It also contained a True Blood parody, but I’m not including that in the list of what makes this the Best Post Ever as I don’t watch that show — I’m basically boycotting vampires, except for Annalise, which, full disclosure, I proofed. Also, I’m in love with the author.)
For a little light Friday fare, I’ve got the first of what I hope will be many website and show suggestions for you:
Website* of the Week
dooce www.dooce.com Heather Armstrong’s influence on the Web has been such that she’s even coined her own, eponymous term for getting fired due to writing about one’s job on one’s blog (“dooced” even has its own entry in PC Magazine’s encyclopedia). More than being merely influential, Heather is funny. This sarcastic, at times sardonic, former Mormon and current HGTV- and mommy-blogger has range and wit in spades. She also often commands that her kids or her dogs cook her a hot dog, so she is truly a woman after my own heart. Start reading her blog from the beginning — when you’ve got days and days to kill (say, after surgery, or while your freshly-unemployed free time is as-yet-otherwise filled). (*Thank you, Wired, for going to a single word, all-lowercase form for this term.)
Show to See
Gorefest VIII: Cirque Du Slaughte, at ImprovBoston, Cambridge, MA In the eighth incarnation of the consistently sold-out show, ImprovBoston’s Director of Programming Don Schuerman brings the circus to the audience, complete with a contortionist, conjoined bearded-lady twins, and somebody named Ramaloke The Mysterious. The show is always funny, always deliciously inappropriate, and always a huge mess — don’t wear anything you wouldn’t want to have to try and wash food coloring out of. And maybe don’t make dinner plans for after the show.
WICF asked first-time Gorefest cast member Deana Tolliver, ImprovBoston’s Associate Managing Director and Director of Training and Sales, about her experiences in the show. Deana told us, “One of the veterans gave me her list of tips last night. They included: Bring your own towels, get some earplugs to protect you from the cannons, you can never have enough baby wipes, just accept that you will be covered in blood, don't even try to fix your hair between shows (it just hardens to a clump) and remember to clean yourself up as best you can before leaving the theater — you don't want to be walking home at 1 a.m. covered in blood. I can't wait.”
When asked about the opportunities for women in comedy in the show, Deana responded, “The women in this show are fantastic, this year has some of my favorite female roles I have seen anywhere. All of them are dark and hilarious: a desperate mother, conjoined twins, a magician's assistant, a mute contortionist, a lion tamer, plus an amazing duo of dancers. The amount of amazingly talented women working in the Boston area is impressive, and Gorefest put together an incredible line up.”
http://www.improvboston.com/gorefest for tickets, Runs W/Th/F/Sa/Su 10/21-10/31 $22 adults/$19 students and seniors Shows nightly at 8 p.m., also at 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
