CIC has acquired an air conditioner, which means our summer shows will be nice and cool. Of course we still need to rewire the theater and install the thing, so if you haven’t had the chance to pledge to one of our Bowl-a-Thon participants, now’s a good time! Remember, every donation is tax deductible.
We look forward to seeing you in our comfortably climate-controlled theater this summer!
So we are about two weeks away from our Technical Rehearsals for “The Book of Liz” and so far the show process has been flawless. So far we have pre-sold 182 tickets for the run (being three weeks out that is a very big deal), We have sold lots of playbill ads, and we have gotten some awesome sponsors for the show. My production staff has been amazing, and the cast is outstanding. I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Yesterday was our first hiccup in the process and I thought I would share it with our blog readers. The Amazing and Talented Suzanne Sole originally cast to play the role of Oxana in our production called me with news yesterday. She was cast in the National Tour of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and will have to drop the show. Now there is NO WAY she should turn this job down. It is big money and a wonderful opportunity that only most of us dream about getting. Of course I have many feelings about this. 1. How totally awesome is it that CIC is attracting this level of talent to audition and be in our shows. 2. Why or Why don’t we have money so we could keep such wonderful and talented people. 3. Why or Why can’t I come up with a stronger Kool Aid Recipe.
The upside is we have had an understudy in place for every role for just such a situation (partly because I know I can’t ask the world of people when they are doing this for free and shear love, part of it is cause so far we have not done a show where an understudy did not go in). And her understudy is awesome. (Wow if I say awesome or totally one more time I will have to shoot myself in the face). And a company member is going to step into the understudy position, (another amazing performer BTW). So as far as talent goes I am covered. And we are far enough out right now that we can recover nicely.
Of course Suzanne is on the poster, in the Press Pictures, and on our Youtube Teaser. But it is just the little part we get to keep of her from this production. She is already missed and I am blessed to ever have crossed her path.
Our Video can be seen here:
It was filmed by the Amazing and Talented Matt Hendricks. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be surrounded by such talent.
Now a few pictures from our Company BBQ
Artistic Director Farrell Walsh with our New Company Manager Owen
Lina gets the Bago Ready for the Tournament
Jill and Owen Talk about Marketing Plans for our Upcoming Season
Looks Like Owen was born for this kind of fun!
I guess Mike Devine wasn’t grilling?
Pete is wondering if Farrell is gonna eat that chicken wing?
Cornwallis stops for a photo opp
And last but not least we have to Thank Elisabeth for opening up her home for this years BBQ.
Since we here are CIC are starting our 8th season with little to no Drama or conflict Angie McMahon decided to go out and cause some trouble in the Comedy Community by picking some fights. When asked for comment CIC’s June 2004 Featured Performer Robert Buscemi said
“You don’t change one bit. I rather get a kick out of seeing you angry,
though I never want to make you mad myself again, that’s for damn sure.”
After Angie stopped smacking Robert around he further commented:
“It’s just funny because I remember I pissed you off once pretty bad by just failing to show up for a show. I flaked utterly, which I virtually never do.
You forgave me eventually, but you made it utterly clear that that kind of crap wouldn’t fly with you, and the only reason you were forgiving me was because I was me.
Plus I kind of read the riot act to myself over the phone about how you guys had put me up so many times and given me the venue for all that phenomenal press for the very first Snubfest in 4 feet of snow and that my fate and CIC’s are sort of intertwined, and what an ungrateful and unprofessional and shitty thing that was for me to do.
So that calmed you down a bit, that I took ownership.
But hell no I wouldn’t want you to get pissed at me again. I’ve seen that look in your eye.”
After she finished beating the hell out of Robert she got a message from Chicago’s Premier Comedy Blog The Bastion They are Looking for some writers to help contribute. So if you know anyone who loves Comedy and wants to meet some real personalities send them The Bastions Way. As for Angie she has been locked up for beating up a mime, she will have to spend the rest of her summer in Comedy College learning to be nicer but still be funny.
By Angie McMahon
So on my summer Vacation from CIC I have been so lucky as to be cast in a show with another Theater Company. The Factory Theater They have been so kind as to cast me as a SoccerMom Zombie in there summer hit Siskel and Ebert Save Chicago.
Not only am I having a really fun time but opening night we had a huge treat. Roger Ebert the man himself came. He reserved the ticket under a false name, and paid cash for himself and his party. He was the last one to be seated in the house, and of course the cast had no idea he was there. We were told he laughed a lot during the show. After the show the buzz started around our 20 person cast that the man himself was just outside. We all gathered on the side walk to watch him hoping to catch some sign of approval from the man we had come to love over the past three months. He instructed his driver to pull around and he put his arm out of the car and gave the cast a big Thumbs Up!
Later in the Run he would write this in his column:
Q. In the wake of “Jerry Springer, the Opera” comes “Siskel and Ebert Save Chicago,” Factory Theatre’s spoof now playing at Prop Thtr. Along with you and Gene, the play factors in Richard Roeper, Mayor Daley, Oprah, Dr. Phil, talk radio’s Mancow Muller, roller-skating she-devils and a plot to conquer the world. What does the Answer Man have to say about all this?Laura Hunt, Chicago
A. I attended opening night in curiosity mixed with dread but actually enjoyed myself. It’s manic slapstick, heavy on the four-letter words, very physical, with Gene as a James Bond type and me as a movie dork. They’re pretty hard on Richard, too. And Oprah and the mayor — everybody, indeed, but Gene and the Roller Derby she-devils. But the most obvious flaw is that Gene is the hero and has all the best lines, including a closing soliloquy in praise of the movies that is so lyrical and touching, I might have written it myself.
This morning the Cast was invited to the Mancow Show. If I can get the podcast on tape I will add it to this blog later.
EDITED TO ADD:
EDITED TO ADD:
This has by far been the most exposure I have ever gotten in a show, and I only have 3 lines. But it has been a ton of Fun, and I hope you will make it out to see the show. It runs Fri and Sat at 8pm and Sun at 7pm through the end of July. Check out Factory’s Website for more info.
by Bruce DeViller
As a child, summer always arrived carrying with it such bittersweet anticipation. It held so many promises of new experiences, greater freedom, and extraordinary growth. Yet, we knew it was short-lived. And, when it ended, we would find ourselves back in the place we were before it started. Whether it was school or “back to reality”, it was a place we didn’t want to be. A place filled with restrictions and deprivations. To add insult to injury, we almost certainly felt like we didn’t grow or otherwise change as much as we thought we would. And this bipolar routine replayed itself out annually until graduation.
I can count the years since graduation on a couple of hands – that is, if a couple of friends lend their hands – and yet, I still look at the onset of summer in the same way. There are great goals to achieve before the crushing return of reality (usually around Labor Day). One such aspiration is to build and launch the next killer social networking website, whose success will rival the likes of Facebook or LinkedIn, and allow me to retire by the age of forty-five. Then there is my desire to “give back” by using the bulk of my vacation time to travel to some far off community-in-need and lend a hand through Volunteer Vacations. These are the not-quite-tangible plans, like setting the objective “learn how to throw a curve ball by Labor Day.’
And, there are more concrete plans in place, too. Things that I know will happen because I’ve already reserved my place. I do know that I will relive some of the care-free moments I experienced as a child on summer break. I will spend a week in August relaxing along the shores of Southern Maine, in the small town my parents would take my siblings and me to each year. I am looking forward to smelling the salty air, listening to the sounds of the surf, and the tasting a true bowl of clam chowder.
I also know that when I am here in Chicago, each Sunday evening will include a healthy dose of theater, even if only as spectator and not performer. This will be my fourth year as a subscriber to the Chicago Park District’s Theater on the Lake season. With each year I feel more strongly than the last that the combination of location, price, and programming variety makes Theater on the Lake the best summer experience in the city.
And, on July 5th, I’ll be at Wrigley Field for the Police reunion concert, looking to experience the same level of excitement and awe I felt when I was sixteen, and their Ghost in the Machine tour was my first concert.
Hey, I’m beginning to see a pattern here. Maybe summer is more cyclical than we know, and its design isn’t to build us up just so it can crush us at the peak of our joy. Perhaps the cycle of the seasons is meant to occur for good reason. Is it possible that we are meant to remember and relive the freedom and wonder that past summers brought us as a way to recharge our spirits so that we can endure the long gaps of restriction and deprivation that happens in between? Ask me after Labor Day.
by Jay Gish
*Internalize the difference between iambic and dactylic pentameter.
*Read something by Chuck Klosterman.
*Maintain my heroin-like addiction to podcasts.
*Talk to somebody about the potential for an Improv City movie. (Probably an unsuspecting telemarketer. Or a cornered Mike Devine.)
*Still eat no beef.
*Get Angie to internalize that not eating beef does not make me a vegan.
*Produce at least two episodes of my dreamt-up original cartoon series, Cats of Death.
*Get to the bottom of that Chandra Levy business.
*Kick ass.
*Feel guilty about kicking ass; take down the names of all whose asses were kicked; apologize to them.
*Care less about Lost. Oh, wait — I couldnt.
*Karaoke I Got You Babe, with a duettist of any gender.
*Block up to 90% of both UVA and UVB rays.
*See resurrected one of the two most underrated reality/contest shows either The Mole or Master of Champions.
*Finally visit a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Or, if not visit one, look one up on Google images.
*Do people still play Connect Four? Maybe check into some of that action.
by Matt Roberson
My summer will be spent figuring out what I am going to do with my new apartment’s linoleium floors. We are moving to New York in June, and we recently rented an apartment with the floors of a soup kitchen. Were talking about being one visitor in golf spikes away from losing our security deposit. So please: if you have ideas about living with linoleum, please email them to mroberson03@comcast.net. Other than that, I will be learning my way around the train system of New York, and trying to convince my parents that living in Harlem does not mean my wife and I have either a. started a doo-wop group, or b. joined the Crips (my parents are Bloods). I will also be brushing up on my Shakespeare prior to starting grad school at Hunter. I’d hate to have a repeat of my sophomore year of college, when I wrote a term paper on the implications of Puck being dismissed from the Real World House (apparently, I wr ote about the wrong Puck). Oh yeah…and dream at night of a Chemically Imbalanced world.
Site last updated December 19, 2011 @ 4:27 pm
