Here’s what my hometown newspaper, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, had to say after we did an interview with comedy beat writer, Mike McIntyre last week…
Tag Archives: The Practical Theatre Company
“The Vic & Paul Show” in Chicago!
Last night, Friday, June 15th, The Vic & Paul Show began its 2-weekend run at The Beverly Arts Center on Chicago’s South Side. And a good time was had by all. For tickets to the rest of the run, click here. Come out and see the show, share some great laughs — and enjoy a drink at one of the many fine local Irish pubs. 
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation, Music
“The Vic & Paul Show” Opens in Chicago Tonight!
Tonight — Friday, June 15th at The Beverly Arts Center on Chicago’s South Side — The Vic & Paul Show begins a 2-weekend run. For tickets, click here. See the show, laugh like crazy — and enjoy a drink at one of the many great local pubs.
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation, Music
“The Vic & Paul Show” Opens in Chicago this Weekend!
This Friday, June 15th at The Beverly Arts Center on Chicago’s South Side, The Vic & Paul Show begins a 2-weekend run. For tickets, click here. See the show, laugh like crazy — and then enjoy a drink at one of the many great local pubs.
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation, Music
Just One Month until “The Vic & Paul Show” @ The Beverly Arts Center…
There’s only one month left to get your tickets for The Vic & Paul Show at The Beverly Arts Center on Chicago’s South Side at 2407 W. 111th Street from June 15-24th. For more info about the show and the Beverly neighborhood — Victoria’s childhood home — click here.
See you at The Beverly Arts Center in June!
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation, Music
“The Vic & Paul Show” — Steve’s Photo Tour of The Beverly Arts Center…
Steve Rashid, the musical director of The Vic & Paul Show, took a scouting trip to The Beverly Arts Center – where Vic, Steve and I will be appearing this summer from June 15-17 and 21-24.
Here’s Steve driving up to The Beverly Arts Center, located on Chicago’s South Side at 2407 W. 111th Street. You can’t see her in this show, but Steve is with his lovely wife, Bea Rashid, a brilliant dancer and choreographer who runs the Evanston cultural institution, Dance Center Evanston. Bea took many of these photos, which explains why Steve ends up appearing in his own photo tour…
You can Steve in the lobby of The Beverly Arts Center. (Dressed in a snazzy jacket.) This is where you can walk in and buy a ticket to The Vic & Paul Show. It’s also where all the pre-show excitement and hobnobbing will take place before each performance.
This is another angle on the bright and sunny lobby – a pleasant environment that those who attend our Saturday and Sunday matinee performances will be able to enjoy.
Steve wanders upstairs, headed to the theatre balcony. Those who sit in the balcony to watch The Vic & Paul Show will be treated to an excellent view of the subtle bald spot on the back of my head.
This is the view from the stage, looking into the 400-seat house. I love all those colorful seats. This is going to be a really wonderful place to see our show.
Here’s Steve standing on the stage. It’s a deep stage with lots of playing space. I’ll have plenty of room to stagger around during “Whiskey Tasting”.
Here’s another angle on the house. All you folks on the North Side of Chicago should come down and check this theatre out during our run in June. It’s shocking that Evanston doesn’t have a performing arts center like this.
This is the view of the backstage area – where Vic will be getting into all of her hilarious wigs during The Vic & Paul Show. Note the covered baby grand. Steve Rashid can really make a baby grand piano sing. Steve can sing, too. The Beverly Arts Center has two baby grand pianos – but Steve will only be playing one of them. He could play both of them at the same time – but that kind of ostentatious virtuosity went out with Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
Here’s one of the four art galleries located in The Beverly Arts Center. What exhibits will be on display during our run in June? Make sure to ask when you’re ordering your tickets for The Vic & Paul Show.
The promotion for our June run is already underway. Get your tickets now!
See you in Chicago’s lovely and historic Beverly neighborhood this June when The Vic & Paul Show brings a celebration of comedy, music, marriage and martinis to The Beverly Arts Center.
For tickets, click here.
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation
Vic & Paul in Beverly Hills
The Vic & Paul Show is coming to Beverly Hills.
Not Rodeo Drive in the 90210.
We’re talking West 111th Street in the 60655.
We’re talking Beverly Hills on the southwestern edge of the South Side of Chicago. (Known to the locals simply as Beverly.)
Yes, The Vic & Paul Show is going back to Chicago this summer.
And this time, it’s a special homecoming for my wife, Victoria Zielinski – because the show The Chicago Tribune hailed as “Old school sketch comedy done right” will be coming to Vic’s old South Side neighborhood.
The brilliantly funny girl who grew up at 91st and South Hamilton will be performing just 20 blocks from her childhood home when The Vic & Paul Show runs at The Beverly Arts Center at 2407 W. 111th Street from June 15-24th, 2012.
As always, Vic and I will be accompanied by our great friend, fellow Northwestern alum, and ridiculously talented musical director — “the rather impish and thoroughly amusing Steve Rashid”*. Steve also performs his own brand of satirical songwriting in the show: “songs,” notes Chris Jones of The Chicago Tribune, “that recall the stylings of Tom Lehrer.”
(*According to The Trib’s chief theatre critic, Chris Jones – and we certainly agree.)
Last year, we appeared on WGN radio personality (and Chicago newspaper icon) Rick Kogan’s radio show, The Sunday Papers — and Rick introduced us by saying, “One of the theatrical events of the year is the return of Paul Barrosse and Victoria Zielinski to the Chicago stage with ‘The Vic & Paul Show’. I know it’s a lofty comparison, but you guys are the new Nichols & May, as far as I’m concerned.”
Talk about making us feel at home in Chicago after more than two decades.
Vic and I left the Windy City in 1991 to do TV work in Los Angeles – and raise our three wonderful daughters – but now that our kids are of age we’re back on the stage. And according to Chris Jones in The Chicago Tribune, “domesticity has not dulled the itch of Zielinski and Barrosse for a Chicago comedy stage, a couple of hard-backed chairs, and each other.”
We’ve been having great fun trodding the boards once more with Steve at the piano, beginning with our June 2010 debut at Push Lounge in Los Angeles, directed by our good friend and another NU alum, Evanston’s own Shelly Goldstein. A year later, we brought The Vic & Paul Show to Chicago for the first time at The Prop Theatre in June 2011, followed by a great holiday season run at Mayne Stage in Rogers Park.
Now, we’re taking our “Evening of Comedy, Music, Marriage & Martinis” to Vic’s old stomping grounds in Beverly.
If you live in the Chicago area and you haven’t seen The Vic & Paul Show yet, we hope you can join us at the 400-seat Beverly Arts Center for this run. It’s a wonderful venue for the show – and you may want to get there early to check out the rotating exhibitions of contemporary art in The Beverly Arts Center’s four gallery areas: second floor East Gallery, Bridge Gallery, Theater Gallery and Atrium. These exhibits are free and open to the public.
After the show, you can enjoy the best of Beverly, including some of Vic’s girlhood haunts, like Fox’s Beverly Pizza Pub, or a magnificent frozen summer treat at Rainbow Cone on Western and 92nd. And, according to Wikipedia, Beverly is home to more Irish-style pubs than any other in Chicago. Satisfying after-show options abound!
Okay, I know what you’re thinking.
Sure, The Vic & Paul Show is crazy funny, The Beverly Arts Center is obviously a great place to see a show, and all those Irish pubs sound like a guaranteed good time – but how in the world did Vic’s old neighborhood get the name Beverly Hills?
That’s because Beverly is the only area in the City of Chicago that has hills: in fact, it’s located on the highest elevation in the city!
So, this June, it can truly be said that The Vic & Paul Show has reached the top.
Join us at the topographical summit of Chicago for two weeks of grown-up fun: sophisticated and irreverent improvisational sketch comedy and songs performed in a splendid theatre in a vibrant, historic neighborhood.
And did I mention Vic grew up there?
Filed under Art, Comedy, Improvisation
Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 