Audience members at Friday night’s ComCo show were treated to an improv show with live music and a guest appearance by former ComCo member, Guy Madjar. Guy graduated in December but was back in town during this show. The performance began with every member dancing together in a surprisingly together opening number. With the unique addition of music they created a fun filled musical improv show, with members singing song lyrics, in unison, as easily as they would say them.

After the opening, the show proceeded with a number of short form comedy games. One of my favorites was where one player, Michael Duczynski, left the room. The remaining actors took suggestions from the audience on how he got to work, what problem he encountered, and how he overcame that problem. Then the absent player was called back into the room and had to explain to his boss why he was late to work, as the other players acted it out for him. He had ridden a subway sandwich to work; that one was more complicated for the obvious reason that it was a subway BUT he had to also mention that it was a sandwich part. The problem he faced was intoxication and he overcame it by meeting Christ, both of which he succeeded in getting fairly quickly. That one is one of my favorites simply because of how much fun it is to watch the actors pantomiming the clues and having to get creative when wasn’t immediately obvious.

Perhaps the only moment where the show lagged a little was the game where they were putting on a movie and then kept changing the genre of the film; on Friday, genres ranged from Westerns to a National Geographic documentary. Despite a good title, “My wife left me”, it just didn’t pick up steam.

The rebound was quick though as the next two games were called “Sing it” and “Bucket of Death”. “Sing It” took place in Hell, per an audience suggestion, and whenever the keyboardist started playing a song, the person who had been talking had to start singing. It went over really well and both Kelsey Fox and Maya Crosman were not afraid to belt it out! The “Bucket of Death” game was met with some whispers from the audience- A ComCo actor holds their breath while putting their face in a bucket of water and then hits the table when they next to be relieved, and another actor takes their place, all the while trying to perform one continuous scene. Despite the audiences hesitation it was a huge success, especially when Adam Konig came back from his turn in the Bucket of Death with a really spectacular head swish which sprayed an impressive amount of water across the stage. And then he tried to pass off the fact that his head was dripping wet from nerves about the exam they were supposed to be taking.

Before closing with ComCo’s traditional games “World’s Worst” and “Innuendo”, which are always a crowd favorite and didn’t disappoint, they played one of their long form games. What in past shows has been a book, narrated by the author Kelsey Fox, while the other players act it out, was instead a failed Musical! Entitled Sauna from an audience member’s suggestion, it was original, hilarious, bizarre, and overall put on with the usual ComCo flare. Having seen previous ComCo shows, Friday night’s was one of their best most innovative performances.

Here are some highlights from Sauna: The Musical!, probably not coming to a theater near you (apologies for the my amateur photography skills)

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MUSKET has continued to surprise me with their musical choice and amazed me with their performances. Big Fish was a triumph and a joy to watch. This comes as no surprise though, as MUSKET’s performances have always been amazing. Big Fish is different though, as it ran for a very short time for on Broadway and only received mixed reviews. MUSKET had to take this unknown musical and present to an audience. This is both a blessing and a curse as the audience has no preconceived notions, but also will be less attached to the music and plot of the performance. MUSKET Was able to overcome this and make the musical something that one could grow attached to.

In this musical, we are first introduced to the father/son duo of Edward and Will Bloom at Edward’s wedding. This initiates the true conflict of the plot as Will asks his father to not tell his stories at the reception, giving us a clue as to what their relationship is like. Of course, Edward doesn’t listen. In the beginning of the musical, the actor portraying Edward, Ben Reitemeier, seems to be overacting. He’s very hammy, but as the musical progresses, you come to realize that this is the perfect acting needed for the character. The character is a fantastical storyteller, always making himself the brave, noble hero. This hammy acting really accentuates the characters peculiarities and make him an entertaining watch.

Throughout the rest of the piece, we transition between the present real-world, and the fantastical world of Edward’s stories as Will tries to understand who his father really was. The first story we get introduced to is the tale of how Edward was told of his death by his hometown’s witch. This is where the musical really starts to shine. Kat Ward plays the witch and is easily the funnest part of the entire musical. Kat Ward pulls out all the stops as the witch and sings her heart out. I watched in amazement as I couldn’t believe the performance I was watching. This is truly the best part of the entire performance.

This plot continues on until we come to the end and Will realizes why Edward only told fantasy stories and never really revealed who he truly was. The rest of the musical is very adeptly performed and is a delight to watch, though none of it is as impressive as the witch sequence.

Some negatives of the play do not come from the performances, but from the actual script/music of the play , something that MUSKET can’t change. Two of the problems, revolve around Will’s wife. First, the writer found it necessary for some reason to state the entire plot of the story through Will’s wife’s line. This was completely unnecessary and treats the audience as children. Secondly, Will’s wife did not have a large part in the story as it mostly focused of Will and Edwards relationship and Will’s mother, Sandra mediating the relationship. This made it necessary for them to find ways to keep the wife out of the narrative. This was very obvious and could have been handled a lot more effectively.

In addition, the character of the doctor was completely unnecessary. He could’ve been cut out of the narrative entirely without losing anything. This was further made apparent as the actor did not do justice to the character. His line reads felt unnatural and the characteristics did not match the tone of the scenes that he was in.

Overall, this performance was spectacular. For those who have never heard of Big Fish, but still saw the performance, I am sure this is now a favorite musical of theirs. It was a fun, sappy time that audiences will love.

Avoiding homework on a Sunday night? Come see the RC Drama students perform in the Keene Theater! The event is titled, wittily enough, “BEWARE the Ives of March: Five Farces by David Ives”. David Ives is best known for his comedic one-acts. The New York Times has even referred to him as the “maestro of the short form”! His collection of short one-acts, All in the Timing, won the 1993 Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award for Playwriting and many of his other works have been extremely well received.

The performance on Sunday, March 20th, starts at 7:30 pm, is 1 hour and 30 minutes for 5 of his one-act plays, and supposed to be hilarious! Also, it’s FREE to all students. It’ll be interesting to see so many of his works shown in collaboration this way and will make a nice end to the weekend.

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Come join MUSKET for what is sure to be another amazing production. This time, they are tackling Big Fish, a musical adaption of the novel by Daniel Wallace. This story follows the fantastical tales of Edward Bloom as he recounts them to his son Will. See how MUSKET tackles this relatively new musical.

March 18th & 19th at 8:00

March 20th at 2:00

Performed at the Power Center

Tickets are $7 for students, $13 for adults. Prices for tickets at the door are increased.

If you happened to be in East Quad last Saturday, you might have been surprised to find yourself in the middle of a bookfair. The main atrium was stuffed with tables featuring booksellers, publishers, and various literary magazines (both student and non-student run). For a book-lover, or any person nostalgic for the days of elementary school bookfairs, this was a dream come true.

In the basement of East Quad, at the Keene Theatre, were panels running all day long with publishers, authors, and professors. I attended the panel on the Midwestern character with the authors Angela Flournoy, Fred Arroyo, Peter Geye, and Phong Nguyen. The panel purported discussion on both the character of the physical landscape and the people, but ended up leaning towards the former. Though the desire was not articulated, a main function of the panel seemed to be to dispel the notion that the Midwest is bland, boring, and indistinct–that unlike the coasts or the cities, the in-between has nothing noteworthy to say. However, as the panel pointed out, five of the nine Americans who have won the Nobel Prize for Literature were from the Midwest and many of America’s “great” writers, such as Mark Twain, also hailed from here. The argument then shifts from whether or not we have a voice to whether or not our voice is too ingrained in America’s literary tradition to distinguish between the Midwest and the rest of America–can we exist and thrive as a unique entity when the Midwest often seems to speak for all of America? But even this goes unrecognized–the Midwest is usually thought of as having no literary tradition of any importance rather than as the stronghold of the American literary voice. As Angela Flournoy pointed out, “Midwestern writers are often recruited to other places,” and this applies especially to the loud ones, the ones who rebut the meekness that is expected of them. She used Toni Morrison as her example, who, in spite of the fact that she was born in Ohio, is often seen as a Southern writer.

But the panel talked about more than just the voices and the literary traditions of the Midwest–they also discussed the landscape of this place. Fred Arroyo stated that “the stories are in the landscape.” What he meant by that is that when you look around, when you see a rusting farm, an abandoned factory, a foreclosed home, when you see these things that are just a passing glance in your world, you’re seeing the loss and heartbreak of someone else’s story. You can’t get very far without finding something to write about. Furthermore, there’s always the question of the place, of this very point of latitude and longitude. From one perspective, it’s just an endless, rolling sea of plains and as Geye asked, “why come here?” That’s a question these writers consider when situating there stories (and also a question that was considered by the pioneers who stopped here instead of continuing on their way)–why here? Why not further west with it’s deserts and mountains, or the east coast with its seas and cities? What drew us here?

I’m not sure that’s a question I can answer–at least, not for anyone but myself. What I will say is that after that panel I found myself thinking of the importance of having literature that features your home or places like your home. People often read books hoping to find something of themselves–and they can do that without the book taking place in their hometown, but every place is unique and every city has it’s own set of stories. And for those of us who didn’t grow up in NYC, it can be difficult to find books about the world in which you live, about the highways that never end, the cornfields changing with the seasons, the silence of cities sleeping under the snow, the rusted and vacant buildings, about, well, home. To me, that’s the point of the Voices of the Middle West Festival: to celebrate the books written by us and about us.