Featuring multi-instrumentalist and Studio5 impresario Steve Rashid, keyboard wizard Larry Schanker, and Chicago’s finest jazz vocalist, Paul Marinaro! Plus the Studio5 All-Stars, with bassist Jim Cox and drummer Robert Rasdhid.
For tickets go to: https://buytickets.at/practicaltheatre
See you cats there!
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation, literature, Music, Politics, rock & roll, Truth
Produced, written, and performed by students, The Mee-Ow Show was established at Northwestern University in 1974, two years before my arrival on campus. In those two years, Mee-Ow underwent a swift transition from a wide-ranging, multi-media variety show to a sketch comedy show in The Second City tradition.
I went to McCormick Auditorium at Norris Center in the fall of my sophomore year to see the 1977 Mee-Ow Highlights Show: a collection of the best sketches from the previous two years’ worth of Mee-Ow revues, Spirit My
Ass and North by Northwestern. Among the cast were Stew Figa, Jeff Lupetin, Betsy Fink, Suzie Plakson, Tom Virtue, Kyle Hefner, and Dana Olsen. It was the coolest, funniest live performance I’d seen since I hit campus.
The buzz at Norris Center’s McCormick Auditorium that night was electric — and response to the highlights show was wildly 
enthusiastic. Mee-Ow was the hippest scene on campus – fast-eclipsing the popularity of The Waa-Mu Show: the traditional Northwestern student musical comedy revue first staged in 1929. Waa-Mu seemed crafted to entertain an older audience – something your parents could comfortably enjoy. But Mee-Ow felt more edgy, more subversive, made by-and-for the student body. It struck a resounding chord in me.
Maybe the popularity of The Mee-Ow Show had something to do with the fact that it shared the fresh, irreverent spontaneity of NBC’s new late-night hit Saturday Night Live (then known as NBC’s Saturday Night) – which premiered in 1975, just a year after Mee-Ow made its debut. But I didn’t make that connection at the time because I wasn’t watching much TV. And I had yet to see a show at Second City.
All I knew was that these people, these fellow Northwestern students, were very funny. And polished. And cool. And I was wanted to be a part of that scene. So, I auditioned for the 1978 Mee-Ow Show, directed by North by Northwestern cast member, Kyle Heffner.
I arrived for the audition at the Norris Center student union and met an incoming sophomore, Rush Pearson. Rush, for some reason lost to memory, was walking with a cane — but we vibed right away. He was damned funny. Kinetic. Offbeat. And short like me. We were both full of what our parents would have called “piss and vinegar.” We didn’t know it then, but after the auditions were over and the cast was announced, Rush and I and a taller guy from the Chicago suburbs with one year of Mee-Ow under his belt, Dana Olsen, would form the core of the next three Mee-Ow Shows.
The 1978 Mee-Ow Show: “In Search of the Ungnome.”
L to R: Jerry Franklin (hidden), Jane Muller, Dana Olsen, Shelly Goldstein, Bill Wronski, Ken Marks, Tina Rosenberg, Rush Pearson (obscured) & the author.
Directed by Kyle Heffner, the 1978 Mee-Ow Show was the very best thing about my sophomore year – and established the template for much of what I would do for the next decade – and beyond. Kyle set the standard for how an improvisational sketch revue should be created. We’d brainstorm comic premises, then improvise scenes based on those premises, record those improvisations – and then script our sketches based on what we recorded.
There was total freedom as we brainstormed the premises. No idea — no matter how absurd or esoteric or tasteless — was rejected
out of hand. Then, Kyle would send us out of the room in groups for a few minutes to work out a rudimentary idea of how to structure a scene from one of these premises.
In our groups, we’d hastily assign characters, devise a basic framework for the scene — and maybe even come up with a button to end it (which was rare). Then, we’d come back into the rehearsal room after ten minutes or so to improvise our scene for the rest of the cast and production crew. Those semi-structured improvisations were recorded and formed the basis for the first-draft scripts of each sketch – which would go through several revisions as we refined each sketch throughout the rehearsal process.
Sketches were living things: always growing, always progressing, getting tighter, more focused in their intent, more streamlined, leading up to a punchier, more trenchant, laughter/shock/surprise-inducing ending.
If a sketch doesn’t end well, then the next sketch starts from a deficit. It must win back the audience after an awkward moment — and that can kill a running order. That’s why, from those days forward, The Practical Theatre Company has never rested until we’ve done our best to satisfactorily “button” a sketch. (Alas, we don’t always succeed.)
But let’s get back to 1978.
Improvisation is where it starts. And where it ends. But there’s lots of disciplined work between the beginning and end.
We’d commit our scripts to memory, so we had the confidence to overcome mistakes. In fact, reacting to mistakes was always an
opportunity for a moment of unexpected, improvised fun with the audience. Confident in the through-line of the sketch and the final button, we could have some improvisational fun when the moment called for it.
Kyle also had his Golden Rules. Knowing that too many improvisations ended with a knee-jerk reliance on violence and death, he declared that violence had to happen offstage. That edict, alone, would set our work apart from so many improv groups that would follow. Death and violence were no quick and easy way out.
Kyle also encouraged us to seek laughs above the belt – and not play to the lowest common denominator. Cursing and vulgarity were employed at a minimum. These were lessons I took to heart. And have tried to observe ever since.
That year, we were also blessed to have a genuine musical genius in our cast: piano virtuoso, Larry Schanker. Larry was just a freshman – but his talent was otherworldly. When Rush and I knocked out some chords and lyrics – Larry turned them into a Broadway anthem. And his pre-show overtures were worth the price of admission. Okay, so tickets were only two bucks. Larry’s talent made the show a hit before the cast came onstage. And he’s still doing it today.
Rush and I shocked the crowd with a sketch called “Biafran Restaurant”. It was a moment in time. We were clad in our underwear, performing a sketch that juxtaposed a terrible African famine with a middle class American dining experience: balancing precariously on the comedic edge as we reminded the audience of an ongoing tragedy. These weren’t easy laughs. And it was glorious. We felt like we were pushing the envelope. And maybe we were. We were college sophomores – just starting to explore our comedic horizons.
I loved everything about the Mee-Ow Show process: the music, the comedy, the late nights scripting sketches at Rush or Dana’s apartments after rehearsals. And when we performed the shows and the packed crowds laughed every night, I was hooked. I was home.
I wanted more. And luckily, I got it.
Filed under Art, Beauty, Comedy, History, Improvisation, Music, rock & roll, Truth, Uncategorized
When I wrote a brief history of The Practical Theatre Company for this blog some time ago, I finished by saying, “The Practical Theatre in Chicago in the 1980’s — that was Brigadoon: a magical place that existed for a brief time and vanished. And I got the girl.”
That was true. I did get the girl.
And because I emerged from that life-changing experience with Victoria Zielinski as my wife and collaborator, the Practical Theatre was ultimately due for a renaissance.
But, alas, the PTC revival would take more than two decades.
The PTC had to wait as Victoria and I tended to our three wonderful daughters. But by 2010, the year of our 20th wedding anniversary, with the girls old enough to spare their parents for a few hours a day, Vic and I began to wonder if we were still comedians with something to say.
We decided it was time to write and perform sketch comedy again — and bring back The Practical Theatre Co.
Thus, was born The Vic & Paul Show.
But that was a rebirth built on a comedic foundation 35 years in the making…
Note: The following autobiographical material is offered to those for whom it may be of interest. But even if you’ve just stumbled upon it — and don’t know anyone involved – you might learn, within this narrative, something about the art of improvisational comedy and the sketch revue format.
Or not.
I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. A lot of funny folks came from there. My father always said that the reason “Cleveland” was so often a punch line in TV and film was because a lot of comedy writers moved to Hollywood from Cleveland. (I eventually proved Dad’s explanation true by doing that very thing.)
I owe my love of comedy and music to my father, who was born and raised in New Orleans. Dad was a jazz and vaudeville fan. He loved old movies, too – especially the comedies. He’d tell me all about how Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Jack Benny, and other comics worked in vaudeville before the movies started talking — and stage stars gravitated to Hollywood.
Dad also explained how some of the biggest comics in early TV were vaudeville stars: headliners like Milton Berle, George Burns, and Gracie Allen.
Dad was a big Sid Caesar fan and spoke with reverence about Your Show of Shows and Sid’s writers, among them Mel Brooks and a young Woody Allen.
Note: Victoria saw Sid and Imogene Coca (pictured left) perform in 1990 at the Briar Street Theatre in Chicago. 68-year old Sid was still doing his sketch comedy thing. Imogene Coca was 82. She wore a bow in her hair that she tossed to Victoria. I like to think Imogene was passing the comedic torch.
Later, when dad worked the night shift at Reliable Springs, my mom would stay up to write down all the best jokes on That Was The Week That Was so she could fill him in after work. I was only 5 or 6 at the time, but something about that show thrilled me: the sketches, the funny songs, the topical satire – most of which flew right over my head. I was lucky my mom let me stay up late to watch it. A few years later, Laugh In had the same effect on me. Only this time, I understood more of the jokes.
I owe my love of theatre to my mom. An elementary school teacher, she made sure her family were regulars at The Cleveland Playhouse, one of the oldest repertory theatres in America, founded in 1915.
She also made sure I saw my cousin star as Helen Keller in her high school production of The Miracle Worker, and my big brother play leads in our high school’s productions of Oliver! and Anastasia. Mom had a teaching colleague who made a keen impression on me as a leading man in summer playhouse productions of Man of La Mancha and The Fantasticks.
For me, live theatre was magical. And live comedy was even better. The give and take with the audience, the emotion, the surprise, the laughter. The stage was calling me – and I answered as best I could.
But my first sketch comedy revue was not a high school production.
Juggling high school football, wrestling, and the stage, I played roles in classic musicals like Finian’s Rainbow, Li’l Abner, The Music Man, and George M!
In the summer of my Junior year, I was lucky to have my drama teacher and our Li’l Abner musical director cast me in Good Times! — a cabaret comedy revue with original songs and sketches staged in a space at a local Catholic church as a benefit. Good Times! was my first sketch revue — with music! I would embrace that format for the rest of my life
Note: There I am, first row right, wearing the white tux jacket I’ll wear in comedy revues for the next five decades. (Though I can’t really button it now.)
I was the only teenager in a cast of talented and experienced adults. They were pros and I was honored to be among them: rehearsing, performing – and enjoying the laughs. It was an eye-opening experience. I loved it. It was the greatest experience of my life up to that moment.
But I didn’t yet see sketch comedy as my future. My plan was to be a serious actor on the regional theatre stage. To paraphrase John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
Like many theatre hopefuls before me, I headed to Northwestern University to hone my acting chops. In my freshman year, I was fortunate to be cast in a musical, 110 In the Shade, a comedy, Catch-22 (pictured as Doc Daneeka, with Stew Figa as Yossarian), and a dramedy, Moonchildren.
That summer, buoyed by semi-success in my first year of college, I summoned the nerve (ignorance and/or naïveté) as a 19-year-old to audition at the Cleveland Playhouse. For some reason, the artistic director honored me with his presence at my tryout. At the time, I took it for granted. In retrospect, I’m shocked. Was it because I was a hometown boy?
I never considered how few parts there were for 19-year-olds in a Cleveland Playhouse season. Or how many 20-something actors fresh from Yale, Juilliard and The Actor’s Studio were up for those few roles. I knew nothing – and ignorance was my strength. I did my best and the Playhouse director let me down gently with a practiced, professional promise that my theatrical future was ahead of me.
But, within a year, I would find that my theatrical future was not as a “serious” dramatic actor. The comedy muse would soon be calling me.
In my sophomore year at Northwestern, I auditioned for the campus improvisational sketch comedy revue, The Mee-Ow Show. And serious regional theatre’s loss would be improvisational comedy’s gain.
How could The Cleveland Playhouse possibly compete with free beer and a one-hour slot on Thursday nights at Sylvester’s Comedy Club?
H.W.A.T (Humorous Weapons and Tactics). L to R: Jeff Lupetin, Me, Rush Pearson, Dana Olsen, Bill Wronski and Shelly Goldstein. Free beer and funny business in the early 1980’s Chicago comedy club scene.
To be continued…
And, in the meantime, skipping 5 decades ahead…
Filed under Art, Comedy, History, Improvisation, Truth, Uncategorized
I have been in love with the improvisational comedy revue format for more than 45 years. Improv comedy has been the guiding light of my life.
Most recently, I collaborated as a writer, performer and director of my 23rd comedy revue – celebrating 40 years of Practical Theatre Company comedy with “Big Holiday Bag O’ Fun” at Studio5 in Evanston, Illinois — ringing in New Year’s 2020 with music and laughter.
I’m still as passionate as ever about developing comedic situations and characters, polishing and performing sketches, and eliciting laughs from an intelligent and discerning audience.
It’s how I’m wired.
My comedy-loving father, Pete Barrosse, was born in New Orleans in 1927. Dad gifted me with a keen appreciation for the history of silent film comedy, vaudeville, stand-up comedy — and sketch comedy giants like Red Skelton, George Burns, Milton Berle, Carl Reiner, Imogene Coca and the great Sid Caesar.
Sid Caesar was the King of TV Comedy — the comedic force of nature behind Your Show of Shows, the seminal TV sketch revue that paved the way for great TV comedy revues like That Was The Week That Was, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Carol Burnett Show– and, in my adult years, Saturday Night Live, In Loving Color, Mad TV, Chappelle’s Show and Key & Peele.
Jumping ahead for a moment — in 1983 I got a chance to work with Sid Caesar and The Smothers Brothers on Saturday Night Live. How crazy is that?
But going back two decades to 1964, I remember my mom staying up after work to take notes on each episode of the edgy, erudite TV comedy revue That Was The Week That Was— because dad was working the night shift at Reliable Spring in Cleveland.
I was just 8 years old, but I recall staying up late with my mom as we watched the show each week, and she took notes on TW3 for my dad.
Pete and Mary loved TW3.
Of course, it was all largely above my childish head – especially musical director Tom Leher’s cutting-edge songs.
Check out the cast and writers for TW3: Buck Henry, Paul Sand, Comden & Green, Henry Morgan, Alan Alda, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, etc.
I was just a child, but I was absorbing the very best of satiric comedy. And I knew my parents thought it was important. Comedy was important. Laughter was important. Lesson learned.
That Was The Week That Was didn’t last long on U.S. network television – but 11 years later, I got my chance to join in the sketch comedy game. And my authentic life began.
Before I knew anything about The Compass Players, Second City, The Committee – or any of my improvisational comedy antecedents, I was cast in my first sketch comedy revue in the summer of 1975.
My high school theatre director Mary Ann Zampino asked me, a callow high school junior, to join her hip, funny, and far more sophisticated friends to join the cast of an adult cabaret sketch show called Goodtimes.
How much older were my cast mates? Five years? Ten? I had no idea.
Musical director Paul Novosel was talented and visionary, but I had no clue how old he was.
He was the musical director and keyboard whiz for my junior year high school musical, Li’l Abner– and Paul and Zamp liked my turn as Marryin’ Sam enough to cast me in their 1975 summer cabaret comedy revue, Goodtimes.
Goodtimes director Jane Van Bergen was the only woman who ever directed me in a comedy revue. Our three man and three woman cast was the most gender-balanced in a comedy revue I’ve ever been in.
Goodtimes was cutting-edge — before I knew where the cutting-edge was!
But these folks were so damn cool – and so funny! And they treated me like a peer. It was a magical experience and it changed my life. Performing sketches, crafting funny characters – and getting laughs from a sophisticated audience (with adult cocktails in hand) was an intoxicating experience.
It would take several years for me to get back to the main thing: cabaret comedy.
When I arrived as a freshman at Northwestern University in the fall of ‘76, I planned to make my mark in the legit theatre. I saw myself as a dramatic actor. My goal was a career in regional theatre — perhaps a role in the repertory company of The Cleveland Playhouse.
Then I saw the 1977 Mee-Ow Show highlights in McCormick Auditorium.
I had no idea Mee-Ow wasn’t a long tradition at NU. In fact, just two years earlier, The Mee-Ow Show began as a subversive reaction to the old-fashioned, student-written musical comedy revue, The Waa-Mu Show. It was a variety show that encompassed music, dance, comedy — even a laser light show, I believe.
Mee-Ow was then revamped and re-directed by cast members Bill Nuss and Dusty Kay (‘76) as a sketch comedy review — taking its inspiration from The Second City, Kentucky Fried Theatreand Monty Python.
The show I saw featured the best bits from the 1977 Mee-Ow Show, North by Northwestern: a show written and performed by Jeff Lupetin, Betsy Fink, Kyle Heffner, Stewart Figa and others. It was so damn funny. It was so damn cool. It was inspirational.
The Mee-Ow Show was now my goal.
But I had no idea where The Mee-Ow Show would lead.
Filed under Art, Comedy, History, Improvisation, Uncategorized
I don’t know if a sense of humor is hereditary. I don’t know whether jokes are in your genes. But it appears that funny runs in our family.
Later this month — on February 20 and 22 — my daughter Emilia will make her West Coast debut as a standup comic at two clubs in Hollywood. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, you may want to check her out.
I have no idea what Emilia’s going to do onstage. She hasn’t run her material by me. She’s 22 years old — and if you’re old enough to vote, fight in the Army, sign a contract and drink legally – you’re old enough not to clear your jokes with dad. So, I can’t wait to hear her routine.
Emilia graduated from Northwestern University (her parents’ alma mater) last June with a hard-earned degree in journalism and a passion for writing comedy. Jokes and Journalism both require a keen, insightful and objective view of the world. But if Emilia’s currently more interested in a punchline than a newspaper byline – what can I say?
After all, what was I doing as a 22-year old fresh out of Northwestern?
33 years ago, in February 1981 during the winter after my graduation, my comic comrades at The Practical Theatre and I were banging the last bent nails into our newly built storefront theatre at 703 Howard Street in Evanston, Illinois – getting ready to stage our second improvisational comedy revue, Thrills & Glory.
It was the PTC’s third season: our first at the magical 42-seat venue we dubbed The John Lennon Auditorium. Thrills & Glory opened on March 21, 1981 with Rush Pearson, Gary Kroeger, Reid Branson and Emilia’s dad (me) in the cast. We didn’t run our material by our parents, either.
A few months later, we opened our third comedy revue, Scubba Hey! — featuring Brad Hall (my fellow PTC artistic director), Rush Pearson, me and a (very) funny (very) young girl named Julia Louis Dreyfus, whom Rush and I met when we performed together in the 1980 Mee-Ow Show at Northwestern.
This month, The Mee-Ow Show will celebrate its 40th anniversary. Of course, I cannot possibly be that old.
But, evidently, the comedy gene is not solely paternal. Around this same time, as I was earning my last college credits and The Practical Theatre was getting underway, Emilia’s future mom (and my future, fabulous, funny wife) was also doing her own improvisational comedy thing. Victoria Zielinski played the Chicago comedy clubs as a member of a group called Laugh Track: another gathering of Northwestern funny people and Mee-Ow Show veterans.
Vic was in law school in 1981 so she couldn’t be part of the early fun on the tiny stage of The John Lennon Auditorium – but in 1983, she finally joined the cast of the Practical Theatre’s hit comedy revue, Megafun at our Piper’s Alley cabaret space behind Second City.
Three years later, Victoria and I (along with Jamie Baron) joined forces in Art, Ruth & Trudy. We got married in 1990. 20 years later, we wrote and performed The Vic & Paul Show — and we’ve been having fun onstage together ever since.
So, I have to admit, our daughter Emilia comes by the comedy thing honestly.
Emilia’s will perform her first standup set as part of the Miniature Stand-Up Comedy Festival on February 20th in the Leche Lounge at Malo, located at 4326 Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles.
The show starts at 7:30. I’m told that folks should “please be on time as the show will start at 7:45 sharp and seats are limited.”
Emilia will be on a bill with a series of comediennes, including Carmen Faulkner, Christie Campagna, Katie Robinson and Raluca Sanders.
Two days later, on Saturday February 22 at 7:30 PM, Emilia will be doing a set at the famous Comedy Store at 8433 Sunset Boulevard. Tickets are $10.00, plus a two-drink minimum. But, really, if you’re going all the way down to Hollywood on a Saturday night – two drinks is the minimum, right? (Doors open at 7:00.)
Emilia’s two standup shows are the entertaining preliminaries leading up to the main event.
On March 28th and 29th, Emilia and her Snickerdoodlin’ comedy partner and fellow Northwestern alum, Maggie Mae Fish, will perform their original comedy revue, Tyrannosaurus Sketch at iO West on Hollywood Blvd. Joining the cast will be USC’s Daniel Rashid, the son of our fellow NU alums and PTC members, Steve and Bea Rashid. (There’s that damn Northwestern/PTC thing again!)
Both shows are at 7:00 pm. Tickets can be ordered here.
When Emilia, Maggie and Daniel take the stage at iO West on March 28, they’ll do so more than three decades after my Practical Theatre friends and I staged our first comedy revue at the John Lennon Auditorium.
May Emilia and her friends have as much fun as we did back in the day.
And — as it has been for us — may that be just the beginning.
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation
There’s little more than a week before “The Vic & Paul Show” opens at The Beverly Arts Center on June 15th. Get your tickets here.
On the day before we open at The Beverly Arts Center, Victoria and I are joining our great friend, and my fellow Northwestern and Mee-Ow Show alum, Dana Olsen, for a special comedy show at The Wilmette Theatre on June 14th. Our musical director Steve Rashid and our original “Vic & Paul Show” director Shelly Goldstein will also join us for a night of “Comedy for the Middle Ages”.
Here’s a recent Pioneer Press feature about “Mr. Olsen’s Neighborhood”…
You’ll meet the most interesting people in “Mr. Olsen’s Neighborhood,” Thursday, June 14, at the Wilmette Theatre.
First of all, there’s Mr. Olsen himself, aka Dana Olsen, the writer of such hit films as “George of the Jungle” and “The ’Burbs,” plus numerous TV scripts, who pursues his Hollywood career from the unlikely location of Wilmette.
Then there’s Evanston resident Steve Rashid, an Emmy-winning composer who is also a musician, singer, producer and recording engineer.
Two of Olsen’s other “neighbors” are Victoria Zielinski and her husband, former “Saturday Night Live” writer Paul Barrosse, stars of “The Vic and Paul Show,” an evening of comedy and music which opens a two-weekend run at the Beverly Arts Center the night after “Mr. Olsen’s Neighborhood.”
Lastly, there’s Shelly Goldstein, a cabaret artist and writer, whose numerous TV script credits range from “Laverne and Shirley” to “Flying with Byrd.”
Zielinski, Barrosse and Goldstein all live in Los Angeles but are gathering at the Wilmette Theatre with longtime friends Olsen and Rashid to relive their fun days at Northwestern University (blank) years ago. (Goldstein and Zielinski made Olsen promise not to reveal the dates.)
College buddies
“It’s kind of like we’re getting the old band back together,” Olsen said of the comedy-variety show he and his friends have created. “We first worked together in the ‘Mee-Ow Show,’ which is the annual comedy review on campus. [Rashid didn’t work on that show with them.] Then, different incarnations of us worked comedy clubs as a group for a while. After graduation, we followed separate paths in the industry. Now it’s years later and our parental obligations have diminished and we decided to start having some fun with each other again.”
Each performer is writing part of the program. Olsen has created a humorous Power Point presentation. Barrosse and Zielinski are doing a few pieces from “The Vic and Paul Show.” Goldstein will perform selections from her cabaret act, which she has presented all over the world.
Rashid is serving as musical director, as well as doing a segment of the show.
“Dana and I have been friends for quite a while through other friends,” Rashid said, “but we’ve never actually worked together. Whenever we get together, we spend a lot of time laughing so we might as well do it onstage.”
Rashid first worked with Barrosse and Zielinski in the 1980s when he was musical director for the Practical Theatre Co., which Barrosse co-founded in Chicago. He is also serving as musical director of “The Vic and Paul Show.”
In addition to participating in the musical numbers from that show, Rashid said, “I’ll have a couple of moments. One of the nice things about this show that Dana is putting together is that there will be several opportunities for all of us to be performing together, in one form or another, and we’ll each have a chance to do a little bit of what we do individually.”
Playing together
“We’ve written some sketches for all of us — which has been a real blast,” Olsen concurred. “We’ve been working together on conference calls and throwing ideas around in email, and sending rough drafts back and forth.”
Rashid recalled one of those conference calls. “They were practically writing sketches on the phone,” he said. “It was absolutely hilarious.”
Olsen said that the show’s theme is: “A humorous look at the trials and tribulations of middle age — an idea of different neighborhoods. Middle age being a neighborhood. Wilmette being a neighborhood. Marriage being a neighborhood. We’re taken the ‘Mr. Rogers Neighborhood’ theme and expanded it.”
Sounds like a great place to visit.
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation, Music
Our very funny friend Dana Olsen, a fellow Northwestern University and Mee-Ow Show alum, is hosting “A Comedic Variety Show for the Middle Ages” at The Wilmette Theatre on June 14th. If you’re anywhere near Chicago’s North Shore, you won’t want to miss it.
Dana is comedian and screenwriter whose works include The ‘Burbs, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, George of the Jungle and Inspector Gadget. Dana is one of the funniest people I know — and I know lots of funny people: intentional and unintentional. With Dana, the humor is definitely intentional.
I’ve known Dana since we were both NU freshmen in 1976. He was a brilliant and captivating raconteur back then – and he’s even more fun to listen to now. Plus, he was recently named one of North Shore Magazine’s “Eligible Bachelors of the North Shore.” It’s truly groovy in Mr. Olsen’s neighborhood.
Victoria, Steve Rashid and I will be joining Dana on the bill that evening – just one night before we open “The Vic & Paul Show” on Chicago’s South Side at The Beverly Arts Center on June 15th.
Comedic chanteuse Shelly Goldstein, another fellow Northwestern and Mee-Ow Show alum (and the original director of “The Vic & Paul Show”) will also be appearing with us in “Mr. Olsen’s Neighborhood.”
“Mr. Olsen’s Neighborhood” is the place to be on June 14th.
Then, after enjoying some laughs at The Wilmette Theatre on the North Side, come down to The Beverly Arts Center on the South Side for more laughs.
June in Chicago will be a very funny month.
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation, Music
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Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 