Due to popular demand, The PTC is bringing back its “Ho-Ho-Holiday Revue” for one night only, with a performance on Sunday, February 4th at 7:00 pm. This event will also be available for remote viewing via Livestream. Tickets range from $25 to $35 for theatre and tables seats, with Livestream available for $10.
The “Ho-Ho-Holiday Revue” is staged in a classic variety show format in the PTC’s inimitable style: a throwback to the TV variety shows of the 1960s and early ’70s, featuring sketch comedy, improvisation, stand-up comedy, and music in an evening of sophisticated adult fun. The show touches on everything from the current political scene to mother-daughter relationships, the Greek gods, the Titan submersible disaster, the Supreme Court, Judge Judy vs. Donald Trump, and some classic PTC sketches. Plus, lots of upbeat, soulful, music from Steve Rashid & the Studio5 All-Stars.
Alcoholic beverages are available for purchase at the show.
The show stars Barrosse, Victoria Zielinski, and Dana Olsen — backed by a jazz quartet led by the PTC’s longtime musical director Steve Rashid. Adding to the fun are vocalist Ms. Maura and veteran stand-up comedian Emilia Barrosse, whose TV writing credits include HBO’s “VEEP” and TruTV’s “Tacoma F.D.”
The Practical Theatre’s Musical director Steve Rashid, Emilia Barrosse, Dana Olsen, Victoria Zielinski and PTC Artistic Director Paul Barrosse can’t wait to entertain you at Studio5 in Evanston for the holidays!
Want to know how Charlie Brown is feeling nearly 60 years after “A Charlie Brown Christmas” first aired on television — back when there were only 3 networks? Here’s a hint. He’s worried about the state of American democracy. (In a funny way, of course.)
Speaking about the state of American democracy — how about the state of the U.S. Supreme Court? The PTC’s “Ho-Ho-Holiday Revue” features the court’s all-female liberal minority singing a classic Motown melody about their resolve to be a check on the conservative majority. (Don’t mess with these ladies!)
Of course, the gods must weigh in over the holidays — and Zeus, the supreme master of the universe, is in a holiday funk. Why should the almighty Olympian Zeus be depressed during the Christmas holidays? Come to Studio5 to find out!
Tickets are now on sale for The Practical Theatre Company’s latest comedy revue — another in a series of nearly-annual holiday presentations. For tickets, click here. Performances at Studio5 run from Dec. 28 to 31 and Jan. 4 to 6.
The Practical Theatre’s “Ho-Ho-Holiday Revue” is a throwback to the TV variety shows of the 1960s and early ’70s, featuring sketch comedy, improvisation, stand-up comedy, and music in an evening of sophisticated adult fun. Tickets range from $30 to $45, and seats for the New Year’s Eve show range from $45 to $55.
The show features a mix of comedy sketches, original satirical songs, and holiday standards presented like you’ve never heard them before – and will touch on everything from pickle-ball mania and the current political scene to mother-daughter relationships, the Greek gods, the Titan submersible disaster, the Supreme Court, “thoughts and prayers,” Judge Judy vs. Donald Trump, and select, classic PTC sketches. Plus, lots and lots of upbeat, soulful, holiday music that will make it hard to resist dancing in the aisles.
Alcoholic beverages are available for purchase at all shows.
The show stars Barrosse, his wife and fellow PTC member Victoria Zielinski, and screenwriter and fellow Northwestern alum Dana Olsen. The cast will be backed by the jazz quintet, The Studio5 All-Stars, led by the PTC’s longtime musical director Steve Rashid. Adding to the fun are blues and soul vocalist Ms. Maura and veteran stand-up comedian Emilia Barrosse, whose TV writing credits include HBO’s “VEEP” and TruTV’s “Tacoma F.D.”
“Vic & Paul & Dana’s Funny Summer Show” is midway through its run at Studio5 in Evanston. There’s one more show tonight, June 25 at 7:30 — then four more shows next week, Thursday through Sunday.
As always, Studio5 features adult beverages and acres of free parking. The PTC provides the laughs.
This Practical Theatre comedy revue includes new sketches, a jazz quartet and a groovy dance troupe.
Here’s what the Evanston Roundtable had to say…
Three talented performers, dare I say senior citizens, who are proven comedians have returned to Evanston from successful careers in Hollywood.
As part of Practical Theatre Company, they have put together a comedy revue, Vic & Paul & Dana’s Funny Summer Show: an hour and a half of clever sketches with professionals who know how to deliver a line.
Victoria Zielinski, Paul Barrosse and Dana Olsen have a long history together, and it shows in how they interact on stage, always in sync and milking laughs from each other.
Barrosse and a group of fellow Northwestern University students originally founded the Practical Theatre Company in 1979. After some success in Chicago, members of the group were hired by Saturday Night Live for the 1982 season. They were young and their humor was edgy and about having fun with current events and politics.
Their material is still about having fun, but the topics they focus on are now geared to older audiences: computer confusion, pickleball, health conversations, community fights and subjects that might seem mundane but are actually fodder for comedy.
Their sketch about ChatBot artificial intelligence taking over their jobs as comedy writers, starts the evening. The side effect polka sketch, song and all, is a hilarious medical commentary. And a pickleball sketch, complete with older guys proving their masculinity over a challenge competition, is a witty take on today’s pickleball craze.Meanwhile, another conversation centered on complaints about potholes leads to a more savvy political satire.
Comedy takes energy, and the performers need some breaks in-between sketches. Their creative solution is to have three young women provide dance interludes, and also serve as stage hands as they move pieces of the set around during their dance moves.
It’s nice to know ahead of time that the entertainment is going to be an evening of good humor with skilled performers and plenty of laughs. I recommend going to “Vic & Paul & Dana’s Funny Summer Show” with friends and leaving together in good spirits!
Welcome back to Evanston, Practical Theatre Company, and welcome back Zielinski, Barrosse and Olsen.
Evanston comedian Emilia Barrosse to perform in her hometown this weekend
By Myrna Petlicki
Pioneer Press
May 08, 2023, at 5:05 pm
There were lots of laughs around the table at mealtimes when Emilia Barrosse was growing up in Evanston and then Woodland Hills, California. That’s to be expected when your parents are comics Paul Barrosse and Victoria Zielinski, Northwestern graduates and founders of The Practical Theatre Company, a Chicago comedy troupe that flourished in the 1980′s and whose members are currently enjoying a residency at Studio5 in Evanston.
“They were so funny at home but I never knew that they were comedians because they put that all on the shelf when they became parents,” Barrosse said. “My dad coached my soccer team. My mom was always there to help me with homework. They never told stories about the old days.”
Barrosse noted that her parents were pleased when she decided to study journalism at Northwestern University.
“I don’t think my parents wanted me to go into comedy,” Barrosse said.
But those family roots were too strong to be ignored. Barrosse has become a successful comic, touring the country to share her humorous reflections. She will be doing that at “Standup Comedy Night,” in Studio5 at 1934 Dempster St. in Evanston at 8 p.m. on May 13 and 6 p.m. on May 14. Tickets are $15; $20 for cabaret seating. For tickets, visit tickettailor.com/events/practicaltheatre.
Barrosse’s comedy career began when she was working as an assistant on the TV show “Veep.”
“It was really kind of like a Cinderella story,” Barrosse related. “The joke submission process for ‘Veep’ was blind. A bunch of writers would punch up the scenes with extra jokes. On the sixth season, I decided to start submitting jokes. Immediately they all started getting used but no one knew it was me. For a few weeks, I’d be standing on set holding everyone’s coffee during the show while they read out my jokes.”
Eventually, Barrosse got the courage to tell several of the writers that she had written those jokes. That’s how she became the youngest staff writer on the hit show for “Veep’s” seventh and final season in 2019.
Barrosse began sharing her humor long before that, though.
“Starting in high school, I knew that I had to be funny,” she recalled. “I went to an all-girls Catholic school and I didn’t really connect with the girls there on an interpersonal level but I realized that I could get people to like me if I made them laugh.”
It was when Barrosse was attending Northwestern, where she was surrounded by people who did comedy, that she realized it could be a career.
Standup has turned out to be a successful career for Barrosse who performs all over the country.
“I want to share my ideas with people,” she explained. “I’m constantly coming up with thoughts that I feel I want to tell people. Some of the topics that people like that are my favorites are Trix Cereals, Mount Rushmore and Go-Gurt and the Grand Canyon. Really random topics that you probably haven’t heard standup about before.”
Barrosse has moved back to Chicago, as did her parents. She said that she decided, “Why not live in my favorite city and be a part of this next revival of The Practical Theatre Company that I missed originally.”
It helps that Barrosse is really close with her family. In fact, her comedy performances are part of The Practical Theatre Company’s residency. Her dad, Paul Barrosse, will host the May 13 show; another Practical Theatre Company member, Dana Olsen, will be the host on May 14.
Two other comics will open for Barrosse: Carla Collins, Sothern California Motion Picture Council’s “Comedian of the Year,” and Josh di Donato, who has opened for Sarah Silverman, Dave Chappelle, Margaret Cho, and many other top comics.
In addition to her busy performing schedule, Barrosse is continuing to write.
“I’m working on two scripts — one with a writing partner and one that’s about the last three years of my life since the pandemic, which is the most personal script that I’ve ever written,” she said.
And she is very involved with her parents’ work at Studio5. Barrosse is “on book” to help her parents with lines when they are rehearsing, she attends rehearsals and offers them notes, and she goes to all of their performances.
“My parents are my best friends and most people are like, ‘How?,’” Barrosse said. She explains to them, “You don’t have comedians for parents.”
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
It will be a happy homecoming on May 13 & 14 for my daughter, Emilia. She’s an Evanston-born writer and comedian who recently moved back to Chicago — and she’s returning to Evanston and the Studio5 stage for a special two-night stand-up comedy event — joined by two of her very, very funny friends, Carla Collins and Josh Di Donato. (More on them later in this article.)
Emilia was born in Evanston but spent the bulk of her life in Los Angeles because that’s where my television career took our family. Like her mom and dad, she went to Northwestern University, spending her college years in the town of her birth attending the Medill School of Journalism. After college, she spent some years as a journalist before turning to stand-up and comedy writing. She worked her way up from writer’s PA to a seat at the table as the youngest staff writer on the final season of the HBO show “VEEP” and then TruTv’s “Tacoma FD”.
Now, Emilia brings her decidedly Millennial perspective to everything from professional baseball’s demise to miracles, revolution, and the miracle of flight. “I have a really optimistic, positive perspective,” she says. “Some stand-up is about insulting everyone and everything around you, but I like it when people say they feel good after my set.”
Emilia will be joined at Studio5 by award-winning and multi-talented comedian Carla Collins and veteran comedy festival performer Josh di Donato, an unsung pioneer of the alternative comedy movement in Los Angeles.
Named “Comedian of the Year” by the Southern California Motion Picture Council, Carla Collins is an award-winning comedian, actress, television and radio host. In December 2022, she won an LA Film Award for Best Supporting Actress and has appeared in numerous movies and television shows in both the US and Canada. She performs comedy in clubs, theaters and festivals all over North America.
Collins is the bestselling author of Angels, Vampires and Douche Bags, a comedic motivational tome and she is currently writing her second inspirational book The Huahua Way, an homage to her beloved Chihuahua Dr. Zira who recently passed away.
Josh Di Donato produced a series of comedy shows in the 1990s at Largo, which became one of the essential places in Los Angeles to see comedy. He has opened for Sarah Silverman, Mitch Hedberg, Zach Galifianakis, Dave Chappelle, Maria Bamford, Janeane Garofalo, Marc Maron, David Cross, Margaret Cho, Patton Oswalt and many more.
I’ll be hosting the Saturday May 13th show which runs from 8 to 10 p.m.
The Sunday May 14th show will be hosted by Dana Olsen and runs from 6 to 8 pm.
Both shows are at Studio5, 1938 Dempster Street in Evanston.
Alcoholic beverages are available for purchase at all shows. And there is plenty of free parking.
Tickets are on sale now at tickettailor.com/events/practicaltheatre.
If you live, more specifically, on the North Side of Chicago.
And if you live, to be exact, on the North Shore – and you have any appreciation for great musicianship, classic film comedy, and an adult cocktail — then there is only one place to be with your loved one this weekend.
On Sunday at 6:00 PM, you must be at Studio5 in Evanston to hear Maestro Larry Schanker play live scores to 3 film shorts by the great silent comedians Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.
Larry Schanker, the pianist for every “Mee-Ow Show” I performed in at Northwestern University in the late 1970s — and The Practical Theatre Company’s first musical director — is back in Evanston on April 30th. Larry’s an even better improvisational musician than he was back in the day.
And folks, back then, he was the best.
For Silent Comedy Night, Larry harkens back to the time before films had their own soundtracks, as Maestro Schanker will play Studio5’s 1927 Steinway grand piano LIVE to accompany three silent shorts by the great silent film comedians, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.
Larry Schanker has received multiple Jefferson Award nominations for a variety of Chicago theatrical productions, including A Christmas Carol at The Goodman Theatre. Studio5 audiences will remember his work accompanying Tom Mula at Studio5 in Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol.
I’ll be joined by my fellow Practical Theatre ensemble members Dana Olsen and Victoria Zielinski as hosts for the evening. We’ll tell you some things about these three legendary silent films stars — and our brilliant friend Larry — that you may not know.
The music, and the fun, will be worth the trip to Evanston!
THE PRACTICAL THEATRE ANNOUNCES ITS RESIDENCYAT STUDIO5 IN EVANSTON, FROM MARCH THROUGH JUNE 2023.
THE PTC TO PRESENT A SLATE OF FILMS, READINGS, MUSIC — AND THEIR TRADEMARK IMPROVISATIONAL COMEDY REVUES.
Nearly four decades after leaving our beloved storefront theatre on Howard Street (The John Lennon Auditorium) in 1985, The Practical Theatre Company is re-establishing an ongoing presence in Evanston with a residency at Studio5 — where we recently sold out the limited run of our comedy hit, Vic & Paul & Dana’s Post Pandemic Revue.
The PTC@Studio5 residency will feature a variety of shows, hosted and performed by PTC members and guest artists drawn from Chicago’s theatre and music communities — and beyond.
There’s no better place to enjoy a show with your friends than the Studio5 Cabaret, which has comfortable seating, state of the art sound and lights, and acres of free parking!
Operated by Bea and Steve Rashid, Studio5 is located at 1934 Dempster Street in Evanston. (On the southwest corner of Dempster & Dodge, adjacent to Dance Center Evanston.)For tickets go to: https://www.studio5.dance/calendar
The great Chicago TV newsman Hosea Sanders honored “Vic & Paul & Dana’s Post-Pandemic Revue” with this segment, which aired on December 28, 2022. See you all at Studio5!
There’s no better gift than laughter. So, this holiday season treat all your loved ones to comfy seats at Studio5 in Evanston for “Vic & Paul & Dana’s Post-Pandemic Revue”. Tickets are available at: http://www.studio5.dance/calendar
This Friday, March 26th, my wife Victoria and I will join the cast of “Into The Mist” as the husband and wife vaudeville duo, Morty & Mitzi. For the past few months, we’ve been playing the roles of Dorothy Parker and Ernest Hemingway — but that was a pre-recorded performance. Morty & Mitzi will be serving up the jokes LIVE.
Drop by our dressing room this Friday if you’re in need of a few good laughs.
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 