Chemcially Imbalanced Comedy’s Blog

By Anthony Ellison

Sound issues hampered this sketch revue when I saw it, but a glitchless
performance wouldn’t have made it any more engaging. Though refreshingly diverse, the American Dreams ensemble never gels, resulting in lackluster bits. Writer-performer Hope Martinez seemed the most comfortable onstage, and even she tightened up as Britney Spears in the closer. Her material–a woman nervously anticipating a man’s come-ons, Scientology’s absurdities, a couple dealing with one member’s rock star behavior–never finds the cleverness or horseplay it needs to hit the nail on the head. –Ryan Hubbard Chicago Reader

Ryan. Hubbard. Man’s man. Man’s critic. Carpenter: “Hitting the nail on the head”? Not a chance with a name like Hope. If writer-performer Hope Martinez had been given a different name, like ‘Seige’, or ‘Blaze’, she might be on the right track to putting a show together that would appropriately accent a “glitchless” performance. But that’s just one of those unlucky breaks that people are born with or not. “Horseplay”? Where was it Hope? Britney and Stallions go hand in hand. Everyone knows that. But don’t blame yourself for lacking the right “hammer” to secure the clever through lines that a MAN like Ryan Hubbard holds above par. It’s tier you were not
meant to reach. Says God.

Join us every Friday for this new satirical series by Sponsored Troupe Member Anthony Ellison. You can see Anthony perform with Counter Productive Lover in our Comedy Showcase. Check www.cicomedy.com for listings

By Anthony Ellison

This 1992 chamber-musical version of Arthur Kopit’s 1978 play, about an elderly aphasic woman, Emily, is an uneasy mix of Hallmark TV movie and solipsistic new age recitative on illness and death. Emily sings her way through most of the scenes, and though the music–by Jeffrey Lunden, with lyrics by Arthur Perlman–can be intense and stirring, its progression from dissonance to melody as Emily’s health improves is predictable. Director Mark Lococo actually makes Apple Tree’s problematic in-the-o blong space work to his advantage, Mary Ernster gives a tour-de-force performance as Emily, and the small supporting cast sure-handedly delivers the comic relief. But Emily never truly soars, mired as she is in her own cliches and the generic characters and ideas surrounding her. –Laura Molzahn Chicago Reader

I’m not sure it’s fair to consider the perspective of Laura Maolzahn’s recent review of Wings: The Musical. She’s a deadly double threat: #1. She is a psychic. She saw right through the music that paralleled the health and demise of “Emily”. Come on, Jeffrey Lunden. Everyone knows music needs to clash with the mood of the play and stay unpredictable when you know that psychics are going to be in the crowd. I suggest scrapping the whole arrangement and replacing it with Boston’s “Foreplay/Long Time”, and pray to the God’s of Accelerated Awareness that she abandons her gift in an overwhelming memory of her very first kiss. To kiss a psychic? There’s a thought. I’d put my money on it, that

Laura has never once closed her eyes during a kiss (Just a side bet).
#2 Her vocabulary is ready for something bigger. She might just feel a little under achieved at the fact that she wastes phrases like “Solipsistic new age recitative” on silly little “chamber-musicals”. Her double threat talents would be better suited in a more intellectual setting …like…um…Presidential eulogy writing, or deceased poets. Then there might be a few brains in the room
suited to really soak up the info.

Join us every Friday for this new satirical series by Sponsored Troupe Member Anthony Ellison. You can see Anthony perform with Counter Productive Lover in our Comedy Showcase. Check www.cicomedy.com for listings

By Anthony Ellison

After some small glitches with preshow technology, about a half dozen or so Satans (in requisite red and black and gothy makeup) appear onstage and start in on you. As we?re trying to take lightly the ominous pronouncement to ?sit back because you don?t have any choice? while the world is crumbling outside, the fact becomes irretrievably clear: We’re trapped. No, really. We. Are. Trapped.

READ FULL REVIEW HERE
- Megan Powell Timeout Chicago

I nominate Megan Powell to speak for us when the world is, at last, confronted by Satan. She will defeat the devil with words!! She is clearly prepared to give him a piece of her mind concerning his over-done “look”. Red face paint? Yeah right, Satan, you’re gonna have to do more than that to scare us…and Megan Powell, slayer of the Dark Prince.
And it’s cute to me (Outside intentional humor) that you tried to pin down THE Megan Powell, Critic Empress of God (God’s future wife), to the general populous by grouping her in “you people”. You silly demons! She is not part of us. She is but an extended limb in the literary defenses of Jesus Christ. You’re lucky you didn’t burn into a pile of ash when you called her “shithead”. You think you’ve seen shit? You don’t know shit about shit, until you’ve seen God shit. It’s made of screaming white gold and it blinds you if you are impure.
But what pains me the most is the fact that even the Viaduct is not safe from Satan’s bombing stand-up routines. Thank the heavens that we had Megan there. Cause it’s not like we didn’t know what we were getting into when we went to a Satanic Awards Show.

Join us every Friday for this new satirical series by Sponsored Troupe Member Anthony Ellison. You can see Anthony perform with Counter Productive Lover in our Comedy Showcase. Check www.cicomedy.com for listings

By Anthony Ellison

Gao Xingjian’s The Other Shore
By Gao Xingjian

NobelPrize–winner Gao Xingjian’s The Other Shore tackles head-on the trials we face as we struggle past life’s sorrows and grapple our way toward nirvana. Or so declare the program notes. Hats off to the audience member who gleans any such straightforward authorial ambitions from the action that unfolds onstage. The Shore most folks will remember consists of an actor initiating largely obscure stage pictures (a woman thrashing on the floor and chanting “hands!” for example) that are eventually adopted by a chorus of black-clad onlookers.

READ THE REST OF THE ORIGINAL REVIEW HERE
— Christopher Shea TimeOut Chicago

In Christopher Shea’s review of The Other Shore, there is a playful sadness that provides a through line for his eye-level understanding of the The-a-ta. Right off the bat, we see how vulnerable and brave he can be immediately, recognizing the “head-on” “struggles” that the path to “nirvana” lays in front of us to “grapple” within reality. Have you ever had to wrestle nirvana? No. I doubt it. If you had, you would end up with a fiercely infinite case of Cauliflower ear, and a broken femur at the least. Chris came back unscathed, with a refined pallet for choreography.

My humble advice: Don’t try to wrestle Euphoria. Leave a man’s job to a man. Christopher Shea will live it, defeat it, and dance the night away in temperamental display of “sexual writhing”. And don’t expect to “cuddle”, or “inch” your way into his heart, cause he did his time watching “aimless” adults childishly attempting to invoke the storm of “gleaned authorial ambitions”. Cuddling is for WEAKLINGS! He’s a man who dances alone…for nirvana…for productions on a diet (rather than this “bloated” display of “hopping adults”). His message is simple: Quit yelling “HANDS!” and “thrashing”, if you can’t yell “HANDS!” and thrash at the same time. Christopher Shea has been through “Highfalutin Hell” and back, he can’t take it anymore.

Oh yeah. And I dare you to yell “HANDS!” at his face… No, I take that back. Don’t yell “HANDS!” at him. He might kill you.

Join us every Friday for this new satirical series by Sponsored Troupe Member Anthony Ellison. You can see Anthony perform with Counter Productive Lover in our Comedy Showcase. Check www.cicomedy.com for listings

By Anthony Ellison

New Review Chicago Reader
Amadeus

It’s possible to pull off Amadeus on a shoestring budget–strip away the Hapsburgian frippery and there’s a seething, human core to Peter Shaffer’s 1979 historical drama in which court composer Antonio Salieri finds himself on the wrong end of a rivalry with Mozart. But Doug Long’s production fails to tap into the play’s raw fury. And despite the shoddiest set and worst wig jobs this side of RuPaul’s Drag Race, it doesn’t rise to the level of camp, either. That’s a shame, because Long has a fine Salieri in Larry Garner, who’s found the right mix of pathos and drollery. The other members of the cast almost manage to be charming. Almost. Oak Park’s Village Players really needs to up its game. –Leon Hilton

Breakdown of Leon Hilton’s review of Amadeus:
Leon was apparently operating on much more than a “shoestring budget” using million dollar references like the old faithful adjective ‘Hapsburgian’ in the first sentence. And thank god too, because he really dressed up the far too ambiguous noun ‘frippery’. But I was thinking to myself, “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa Leon! You busted out the literary hammer on my brain way too early! How are you going to keep up this fripperian pace?” Then in vintage Hilton fashion, he drops the “raw fury” bomb right on our foreheads, to remind us that Leon criticizes for passion, not glory.

By choice, Leon chooses to throw a paradox right at our Fripperial Cortexes by belittling the wigs and the set 50 words after he declared it ‘possible’ and almost forgiving to put up a low budget, respectable version of Amadeus. So just stop trying to figure Leon out and trust me when I say that he is a man who knows to expect a low budget costume and set display from a small theatre putting up a period piece. And even though, he forgot to really tell us anything about the actual acting or direction, he made his way around to mentioning everyone’s favorite current transvestite, RuPaul. Because Leon, I agree. The world has not heard enough about him. Almost charming? No, Leon, you can color me all the way charmed.

So Cheers, Leon! Here’s to putting the ‘r’ back in front of the ‘e’, in theater!

Join us every Friday for this new satirical series by Sponsored Troupe Member Anthony Ellison. You can see Anthony perform with Counter Productive Lover in our Comedy Showcase. Check www.cicomedy.com for listings

Bad Review concluded its 41 show run on Sunday. Here is a clip from the final show.

We sincerly want to thank all of our fan who have followed the show these past three years. It has been a joy!

CIC: Hey Jay Gish you have been with the show now for Over Half of the over 41 show run. What is your favorite moment so far?

Jay: During our run at the Lakeshore Theater, my brother and sister-in-law from Nebraska were at the show. That night I happened to be sick as a dog, and couldn’t alter my voice at all from a froggy grumble. Normally, that’s a recipe for a bad show. But the group pulled together and made it an excellent one, giving my out-of-town family a successful impression of what I do, here.

CIC: What is the hardest thing about doing the show?

Jay: Improvising a plot to fit our running time. When I did “theatrical improv” with the Free Associates, we did the exact same form and style every week, making it simpler to find your beats during the show. Bad Review does an entirely different show every week, which in a way means you’re always playing catch-up to the style. Often, you feel the urge to either wrap up the plot way early, or you just want to keep going with it, indefinitely. It’s certainly a new level of challenge.

CIC: What is your favorite thing about doing the show?

Jay: When you get to do your own take on classic characters/archetypes. If we get a high school love story, that can be your chance to finally play the starchy principal that everyone hates — which is tremendous fun. Plus, the cast (and the wigs) crack me up multiple times every week. I love it.

CIC: What is some other projects you are working on right now?

Jay: I’m really proud of the work we’re doing on CIC house team, 96D. I’m also close to putting up a musical improv show with fellow Resident Artist, Dave Whalley. And, at some point, another Improv City vignette will probably come out.

CIC: What is something none of your cast mates know about you?

Jay: Hm, I took judo for a semester in college. I probably haven’t mentioned that to anybody around here. Because it encourages people to challenge you, and I only know just enough to get the crap beaten out of me.

CIC: Anything else you wanna add?

Jay: I’m always up for doing more, musically. I did music before I ever did improv, and I’m sure I don’t do as much with it now as I could.
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On Sunday Oct 5 with our 41st performance we will close our long running show Bad Review.

With special guest Chicago Reader Critic Jack Helbig presenting our final Bad Review.

We take the worst review from the Chicago Reader and we Improvise the show we feel the critic would rather see. This weeks Review:

Kafka on the Shore
In Haruki Murakami’s sprawling, metaphysical 2005 novel, two heroes–a teenage runaway and a simple-minded cat whisperer–embark on separate but equally strange journeys that involve talking cats, an oedipal curse, and Colonel Sanders, and eventually intersect. The key to staging the novel (no simple task) lies in reproducing its dreamlike air. Adapter-director Frank Galati’s visually restrained production occasionally achieves moments of quiet poetry, but the staging is scattered rather than fluid and the almost episodic script fails to recreate Murakami’s illogical but unified cosmos. Robbed of its idiosyncratic cohesion, the story loses its eerie power and becomes flat and haphazard. Instead of dreaming we get sleepwalking. –Zac Thompson

Featuring Original Cast Members:
Cindy Shur
Krystal LaFianza-Pitzen
Gillian Bellinger
Isaac Sernoffsky
F. Tyler Burrnet
and Long Time cast member Jay Gish

Created and directed by Angie McMahon

Sunday 8pm $10
Chemically Imbalanced Theater
1420 W Irving Park
Chicago, IL 60613
www.cicomedy.com

Opening for Bad Review is CIC’s sponsored Troupe Roboctopus.

CIC: Hey Cynthia Shur you have been with the show now for almost all of the over 30
show run. What is your favorite moment so far?

Cynthia: It’s a tie: the vaudeville performance involving dinner roles and spoons, and F. Tyler being cancer on Ed Flynn’s body.

CIC: What is the hardest thing about doing the show?

Cynthia: Finding a balance between pushing the story and allowing for a little venture into what we like to call Bit City.

CIC: What is your favorite thing about doing the show?

Cynthia: The opportunity to play with all of the different theater styles, and the delight of taking horrendous theater reviews and turning them on their heads, poking a little fun at the authority of theater critics.

CIC: What is some other projects you are working on right now?

Cynthia: I am performing in a show called The Brides of Ghost Hunter Richard Crowe, a look at the haunted areas of Chicago. I am also working on adapating a novel for the stage, Earthshine by Theresa Nelson, and performing with CIC’s improv team 96D.

CIC: What is something none of your cast mates know about you?

Cynthia: I was on a league champion field hockey team in high school.

CIC: Anything else you wanna add?

Cynthia: I miss all of the past cast members, and hope you’re having fun wherever you are! We love you!
—————————-
Bad Review performs each week on Sunday at 8pm tickets are $10. We take the worst review from this weeks Chicago Reader and we improvise the show we feel the critic would rather see.

CIC: Hey Gillian you have been with the show now for 20ish of the over 30
show run. What is your favorite moment so far?

Gillian: My favorite moment so far would the the grande finale vaudeville roll dance that Cynthia Shur and I performed. Some may ask themselves, what is a vaudevillian roll dance. Well, it is a spectical to behold. Rolls are flying. Ladies are dancing. Spoons are flipping, and the world is better at the end.

CIC: What is the hardest thing about doing the show?

Gillian: Patience and trust. Patience to let others do what they feel they need to do, and trust to honor what it is they are doing.

CIC: What is your favorite thing about doing the show?

Gillian: The discovery of what actually comes out. You just never know.

CIC: What is some other projects you are working on right now?

Gillian: I am on a Playground Team, Damascus Steel. I have a show opening on Sept 12th called Downward Smile at Donny’s Skybox at the Second City, and I am currently working on my one woman show.

CIC: What is something none of your cast mates know about you?

Gillian: I just got a new phone, light blue, a chocolate.

CIC: Anything else you wanna add?

Gillian: I love the Price is Right, but I’m not sure Drew Carey is a Bob Barker. Know what I mean?
—————————-
Bad Review performs each week on Sunday at 8pm tickets are $10. We take the worst review from this weeks Chicago Reader and we improvise the show we feel the critic would rather see. This weeks Review:

Anna Livia, Lucky in Her Bridges
David Brendan Hopes’s play is a gay ghost romance, with echoes of Brigadoon and The Dybbuk, in which true love weathers not only suicide but steambath assignations. Alternating between the first Bloomsday–June 16, 1904, the date on which James Joyce’s Ulysses unfolds–and its centennial celebration, this ambitious work follows David, an American tourist, as he uncovers the supernatural connection that draws him back to Dublin over and over again. Clearly, Hopes envisioned a parable about overcoming the shame historically associated with homosexuality. But that’s the only thing that’s clear. Between Kevin D. Mayes’s misbegotten direction, an amateurish lighting design, dramaturgical failure, and Hopes’s own, badly tangled metaphors (question one: Why Bloomsday?) the project’s a mystic mess. Only Timothy Martin survives, as David’s love interest. –Tony Adler

I came up with the idea of Bad Review initially as kind of a joke. Almost the same way Snubfest came about.

The first time I called the Reader was in Oct 2001 to ask if we could get a review for our first show “The Southpaw Sam McClowski Show”. I was a Columbia College Grad and knew one of my teachers worked at the Reader Albert “Bill” Williams. He taught a singing for the actor class at Columbia.

Always sweet Bill took a good amount of time with me on the phone kind of explaining how it works. “Its your first show…well we get a lot of requests. We kind of try to see everything but can’t always make it work. Ok give me an hour or so to find someone” he said. “Oh Bill, you made this Columbia Grad so happy!” I liked to hit people over the head with stuff cause subtlety has never been my middle name. “You wont be the first Grad I’ve helped and I’m sure not the last.”

We got a nice softball review.

As the years started to pass we got fewer and fewer nice things from the Reader. Always one or two nice lines with a few undercutting remarks. Just enough to knock you back down a peg. But always enough for a nice pull quote.

After “God” by Woody Allen I started making jokes to folks around the Theater. “I’m gonna do a show called “Bad Review” and improvise what the critic thinks he wants.” The description always made people laugh.

In Nov 2005 we decided to try to revamp our Friday nights. Our show “Lick Your Wounds” had never caught an audience and we had always struggled with the 11pm time spot. We came up with the idea to do 4 different shows. Each show would be a different offering each week. I decided to put my money where my mouth is and take a crack at doing “Bad Review”

I had worked with the now defunkd Free Associates Theater Company for sometime as an actor and a producer. I often talk about them as the first influence that shaped me as a improv actor. I used the techniques I learned with them to create the show.

The original cast worked with me for three months before the first show in Feb 2006. Trying different styles, tweeking the “Matrix” form I had found at a screen writers lecture. They were relentless and falling in love with the show.

That original cast would meet at midnight if it was the only time we could all meet just so we didn’t go a single week without working on the show.

One of the only shows I actually taped was the very first one. Found here:

Bad Review The Show Vol 1

The first show almost sold out, with 40 of the 50 seats full. And not just friends of actors, it was a lot of Theater companies and lovers wondering…looking on to see what this was gonna be like.

The show became hugely popular quickly. I started to get other Theater companies sending me bad reviews asking if we would do there show. People would get a bad review and hope we picked it. It was crazy.

After we got our space and opened Dec 1, 2007 I wanted Bad Review to have its own open run. The show had sold out 300 seats at Looptopia, headlined at the LA Improv Festival, done a run at Donny Skybox (also sold out), and I wanted it to have a permanent home.

To date we have done 38 shows total…we will close on our 41st show.

In our open run the shows fan base has gone down. It was a once in a while treat that folks would come out of the woodworks for. Even the Reader liked it…Giving us its highest honor of “Highly Recommended”

We have grown to love and learn so much about the writers at the Reader, and it has been a treat to read your reviews week in and out.

It is with a heavy heart I close this show. The first show I ever created and directed from scratch (with the help of an amazing original cast of Gillian Belinger, Cynthia Shur, Jeremy Bassett, Isaac Sernoffsky, Jill Slattery, Krystal LaFianza-Pitzen, and F. Tyler Burnett).

Thanks to all the Theaters that have had a great sense of humor, and all the fans that have come again and again. With three shows left in this long run we will for sure go out with a bang.