Here is a little Queen Inspired Comedy to brighten up your day. Have a great Holiday everyone!
Archive for the ‘Article’ Category
The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009What’s Next for the New Team?
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009By Jill Fenstermaker
As the coach of CIC’s newest team, I thought I’d share a bit about what happens after the audition process once new troupes are put together. First comes the somewhat mundane (but important) business of exchanging contact information and sorting schedules to select a day and time for our weekly rehearsal (we’re in the midst of that right now.)
Once these details are ironed out, my top priority will be helping the group become comfortable playing with each other. In artsy terms, you could call this ‘fostering the ensemble.’ Or you could simply say it’s helping team members bond and be supportive of each other. We’ll do exercises focused on getting to know each other, and lots and lots and LOTS of scenes. And speaking of bonding, we’ll plan a few team events outside of rehearsal over the next few months too, like a game night or a trip to a CIC Showcase. The next step will be choosing a form that compliments the team’s strengths. We might to choose an existing form, to modify an existing one, or even create a brand new form (the coach of retired CIC team Cornwallis once made a form based on a movie.) With the team’s consent, I’ll write another post once we begin the process of choosing a form. Stay tuned!
Love Letters
Thursday, February 12th, 2009Recently CIC was nominated for the Emerging Theater Broadway in Chicago award, we recently found out we did not make it to the next level of voting. But we had asked folks if they would like to write some letters of support for us to send in with our application for the award. Here is one of those letters:
To Whom It May Concern:
While studying theatre in college, one of the primary aspects of the art world, that thing which grabbed me the most, was a sense of community, family, and trust among my fellow artists. Upon moving to Chicago, I had no home away from home. On a whim, I dusted off a headshot, polished up a monologue, and headed over to audition for this company called Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Theater and their upcoming production of Book of Liz. After living in Chicago for less than a month, I was already cast in my first production.
Book of Liz was a huge success for the company. When we started the run, we were rehearsing where ever we could get a room. Because the show was such a hit, CIC could finally afford a theater space and Chemically Imbalanced had a home at last. The production didn’t just work wonders for the company, I felt I’d gained quite a bit from the experience as well. Those feelings of community and family came rushing back again. It was something I hadn’t felt on stage since I was 19 years old. Not only was I pleased to say I was a part of the little show that could, the show that brought them such success, but I found a Chicago theater home a lot quicker than I had anticipated.
In the past year and a half I have seen the audiences and the interest in CIC grow at an impressive rate. I have worked closely with the people who started this company from the ground up, and I am overjoyed to watch their dreams become a reality day in and day out. I am now a company member at Chemically Imbalanced, as of September 2008, and I am honored and privileged to be adopted into this theater family. With the attention of Chicago theatergoers, Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Theater could open their doors even wider, and the theater community in Chicago could feel that sense of family, that little detail that causes so many of us to fall in love with the art form in the first place.
Thank you so much for considering Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Theater for such an honor.
Sincerely,
Casey Pilkenton
Love Letters
Monday, February 2nd, 2009
Recently CIC was nominated for the Emerging Theater Broadway in Chicago award. We asked folks if they would like to write some letters of support for us to send in with our application for the award. Here is one of those letters:
Love Letters
Monday, January 19th, 2009Recently CIC was nominated for the Emerging Theater Broadway in Chicago award. We asked folks if they would like to write some letters of support for us to send in with our application for the award. Here is one of those letters:
Dear League of Chicago Theatres,
We, the Basic Eight, wish to take this opportunity to support the nomination of Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Theater (CIC) for the 2009 Broadway in Chicago Emerging Theater Award.
The Basic Eight is an ensemble that performs improv comedy and writes and performs other comedic theatrical productions in Chicago and other venues around the country and in Canada. Additionally, the Basic Eight performs regularly as a house improv comedy ensemble at the Playground Theater, an artist-lead, cooperative theater company that promotes all aspects of improv as an art form.
In 2006, the seven cast members of the Basic Eight graduated from an improv comedy training center in the city which often provides to some of its graduates the opportunity to perform at its theater. We were not cast at that theater, but despite some initial discouragement, we chose to pursue performance opportunities elsewhere in the city. The task is not a simple one, as thousands of improv performers must compete for performance space in a limited number of venues. Without so much as an audition DVD, CIC gave us an opportunity we needed.
For close to three years now, the Basic Eight has performed monthly with CIC’s weekend Comedy Showcase. The theater has supported our efforts to bring a unique and quality product to a following that has expanded from simply our friends and family to regular patrons of improv comedy and even distinguished performers.
Our success at CIC is not limited to performance. Our experiences onstage at CIC with CIC ensembles and other guests have awarded us additional performance opportunities and strong friendships with the company. We are truly fortunate and appreciative t be involved with such an outstanding group of performers.
While we have found a permanent home theater outside of CIC, we remain incredibly thankful and indebted to CIC and excite in our continued monthly performances at their wonderful new theater in North Lakeview. We hope that the League considers the Chemically Imbalanced Comedy Theater company as the strongest candidate for the 2009 Broadway in Chicago Emerging Theater Award.
Cordially,
The Basic Eight
Trey Chambers, Mel Evans, Brian Finlay, Curt Foxworth, Kara Jakubec, Drew Korb, and
Amy Verdon - Cast
Derrick Aguis - Director
Centerstage Show Review
Friday, September 5th, 2008Reviewer: Rosalind Cummings-Yeates
Monday Aug 04, 2008
“Whoever said pimpin’ ain’t easy don’t know what the hell they doin’,” announces a pimp as he adjusts his fur stole at the beginning of his scene. It’s a highly relevant point that touches on the broad images of pimps that fill popular culture. This statement also sums up the experience of “Pimprov,” the ridiculously absurd improv show that skewers dumb media caricatures with merciless wit. If you want gratuitous humor laced with sharp social-political observations, this is the show.If you want silly portraits of pimps in polyester pants and bling-covered chests, this is the show. If you want to see keenly executed improv, this is the show. Pimprov offers all of these elements because the show’s actors really know what they hell they’re doing.
The show’s premise involves four pimps who decide to take improv classes at Second City. Improvisational theater boasts strong Chicago roots, with local troupes the Compass Players and then Second City helping to popularize the form. However, with Chicago roots also comes the tendency for racial segregation; improv in general and Second City in particular are known as white male bastions. So the show’s premise, as well as the fact that all of the African-American performers have improv training, lends itself to tons of comic and political possibilities.
Stomping through clouds of smoke with hip-hop pumping and synthetic fabric blazing, the guys of Pimprov do not disappoint. The sight gags alone are worth the price of admission. There’s the Internet Pimp (Skippa Hickson) or IP for short, in crushed red velvet PJs, a white bathrobe and a Blackberry that quickly loses power. Ho Lease (Mark Bratton) sports plaid wool knickers with matching vest and newsboy hat. Pimpin’ Poochie (Keith Smitherman) wears ankle-skimming white polyester pants, a ratty afro wig and tattered fur coat and Grand Finale (Marz Timms) dons a rakishly tipped white fur hat with a sparkling black-and-silver shirt that’s open to reveal a diamond-encrusted chain. Fortunately, that’s just the beginning. The actors quickly move into a dizzying array of improv sketches, including a Chinese delivery man who insults them by asking about the Cubs, to a white man who demands white eggs for breakfast because, well, he is white.
The finale involves the cast pulling an audience member onto the stage and re-enacting his or her day. At this particular show, the audience member happened to be a Brazilian woman who got lost in Mundelein and brought along her boyfriend, who just happened to resemble a serial killer. The details for this scene are fuzzy because the howls of laughter obscured most of the lines and streaming tears blurred a lot of the action. Suffice it to say, it was funny.
Pimprov is a must-see show. The tiny storefront literally shakes with laughter. Each performance gives proceeds to a battered woman’s shelter and the level of improv skill makes the show a significant addition to a Chicago tradition.
Snubfest Article in the Tribune
Friday, May 30th, 2008Check out this article from today’s Chicago Tribune! Snubfest starts next Thursday June 5, 8pm at the Chemically Imbalanced Theater.
Just for laughs
Rejects gather for an improv fest of their own
By Glenn Jeffers
Tribune reporter
May 30, 2008
When the Hollywood writer’s strike forced him to move the Chicago Improv Festival to the first week in June, Jonathan Pitts found himself placing a strangely familiar call to Angie McMahon.
“I found out that we were running the same week as Snubfest and I had to call Angie and ask her blessing,” says Pitts, the festival’s executive producer. “She already had the week and I wanted to make sure it was OK with her.”
Funny thing, kismet. It was only four years ago when McMahon asked Pitts for his blessing to produce Snubfest, a four-day festival of sketch, improv and stand-up beginning Thursday at Chemically Imbalanced Theater. Now in its fourth year, the festival continues to grow, bringing in acts from all over the country. And even a few from outside the country (Toronto).
But the premise remains the same. Every act at Snubfest has been rejected by another festival within the last year. It’s a celebration of second chances. In fact, McMahon and Pitts are co-producing a show for Snubfest called “Second Chances,” made up of acts that didn’t get into Pitts’ festival. Now, Pitts says, they’re in the Chicago Improv Festival.
Sort of.
“Everyone’s been rejected,” says McMahon, a comic actor who co-founded Chemically Imbalanced Comedy with her husband, Tom. “But just because you didn’t get the job doesn’t mean you weren’t qualified.”
Snubfest has also become a proving ground for up-and-comers, thanks to “Last Snub Standing,” a contest held Friday for stand-ups and Saturday for sketch and improv groups. The contest’s benefit is two-fold. Not only are contestants vying for spots at other festivals, they also perform in front of booking agents and reps looking for the next big talent.
It’s where Bert Haas, executive vice president of Zanies Chicago, says he realized just how good local comic Nick Vanderott was. Vanderott had showcased at Zanies a couple of times, but Haas wasn’t wowed by the young comedian’s six-minute set.
But then Haas came in as one of the “celebrity judges” and watched Vanderott as he hosted the contest. With a little more time, Haas saw more of the comic’s shtick, and liked it. He started booking Vanderott, who is hosting the stand-up contest again this year.
“Most of the comedians I’ve already seen at one time or another,” says Haas. “But it gives me a chance to see them in a little different venue.”
Snubfest has grown to where organizers have to start turning away acts. McMahon sees the irony, but the rejection can’t be helped, she says. Too many performers, not enough slots.
“Some of it is choosing who gets 25 minutes and who gets into a showcase,” she says. “Some of it is that we found a really unique group.”
SnubfestWhere discarded comics get a second chance
When: 8 and 10 p.m., June 5-8
Where: Chemically Imbalanced Theater, 1420 W. Irving Park Rd., www.snubfest.com
Price: $10, 773-865-7731
Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune
Pimps in the News!
Friday, May 16th, 2008Pimprov got a great review in the Trib today! Full text of the article below the picture. You can catch Pimprov at the Chemically Imbalanced Theater ever Saturday at 8pm, through the month of June.
“Pimps” doing improv are a riot
By Glenn Jeffers
Tribune reporter
May 16, 2008
Had a sociologist been in the crowd during “Pimprov,” the comedy show running at Chemically Imbalanced, he or she would have found an unusual case study. And I’ve got just the title: “The Effects of Raw, Unapologetic Black Humor on an Unsuspecting White Audience.”
Because for 45 minutes, I laughed. Flat-out laughed. But it was hard to figure out which was funnier: the scenes from this five-member troupe or the audience reactions, which fluctuated between gut-busting laughter and mouth-gaping shock.
It was hard to tell sometimes, mainly because “Pimprov,” whose run was extended through June, was a slick piece of meta-improv built around a simple premise: A quintet of pimps took some improv classes at Second City and decided to moonlight. But the show was more than just flashy costumes, big hats and, in the case of ringleader Grand Finale (creator Marz Timms), a belt with a scrolling light display.
“Pimprov” peeled away like onion layers. One moment, the pimps acted out a trip to Chipotle, which an audience member suggested (”Chipotle? We must be on the North Side,” Timms said). The next, Pimpin’ Poochie (Keith Smitherman) pulled out a knife, threatening to cut an audience member unless he took off his striped shirt—the pimp didn’t like stripes.
Of course, neither Timms nor Smitherman nor any of the other “pimps” (actors Jonathon Keaton, Mark Bratton and Skippa Hickson) work in that illegal trade. They don’t condone abuse toward women—a portion of the box office proceeds go to a women’s shelter. And no one cut the kid—though he did take off the shirt.
But it was fun to watch the troupe’s “pimp” persona seep into every non-Pimp improv scene; Timms’ Grand Finale had a hilarious turn as a flying squirrel afraid of heights. But “Pimprov” was hilarious when it brought in the audience. There’s crowd work, and then there’s pulling some poor guy from the front row for a game of freeze-tag, pimp style.
That culture clash was this show’s greatest weapon—a perspective so far removed from its Lakeview audience that only one of two things could’ve happened: either the crowd would shut down or they would go with it. Luckily, the pimps were so over the top the crowd couldn’t help but laugh.
During one game, the pimps pulled Andy Sabin and Mary Donoghue, both 26, from the crowd. In the game, Grand Finale and another pimp, Daddy Jenkins (Keaton), played Donoghue and her roommate while Donoghue played Sabin, her boyfriend.
Sabin sat in a chair with a bell. Whenever Donoghue did something he’d never do, Sabin hit the bell.
I won’t recount every laugh here. But when Donoghue passed up a fun night with his girlfriend and her roommate, Sabin slammed on the bell. The crowd roared and “Pimprov” called it a night.
Pimprov in Time Out Chicago
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
In the new issue of Time Out Chicago, Comedy Editor Steve Heisler profiles African American comics in Chicago, including sketch duo KevInda and friends-of-CIC Pimprov.
From the article, here’s creator Marz Timms on the origins of Pimprov:
Timms decided to found Pimprov in 2004 simply because he thought the idea of pimps performing improv was hilarious. (It is.) “I’d have a problem if I felt we were representing the voice of black improvisers, because this show is merely for entertainment,” he says.
Still, Timms says sometimes Pimprov offends—both those who see it as glorifying the pimping lifestyle and those who read further between the lines. “I bashed Tyler Perry the other day, and this lady just had a heart attack,” Timms says. The woman countered that he should support Perry out of race solidarity, and that she would see one of Timms’s shows just because he’s black. “And I said, ‘Look, don’t come see my show ’cause it’s a black show—come see it because you find it funny.’”
Full article can be found here: http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/comedy/28311/diverse-engineering
Be sure to check out Pimprov, whose open run at Chemically Imbalanced Comedy starts this Saturday night at 8!
Snubfest in TimeOut Chicago
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
CIC got a nice shout-out in last week’s issue of TimeOut Chicago, in a profile on local performer Nick Vatterott:
“[Vatterott] showcased a few times for Bert Haas, Zanies’ talent scout, but Haas admittedly didn’t ‘get’ him. It wasn’t until Vatterott was arguably in his element — hosting a raw stand-up competition at Chemically Imbalanced Comedy’s 2006 Snubfest — that he clicked with Haas, who was seated at the judges’ table.”
You can the full article here!
There’s still time to apply for an opportunity to click with the judges at this year’s Snubfest — the submission deadline has been extended to April 10th.
