Theater

Last Chance to see “Witch, Please.”

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Tomorrow is the last performance of “Witch, Please.” at Donny’s Skybox in the Second City complex in Chicago! You get one last chance to laugh with us, have a little Halloween treat, and maybe a drink or two if you’re so inclined.

Come check out our unique digital blend while you have the chance! We just about sold out last week, so grab your tickets while you still can.

AND you can check out the super-awesome amazing props I made.

Fine. I might be over-selling the props. Hope to see you there!

In or near Chicago in October? Come see “Me Inside Me Presents: Witch, Please,” on October 1, 8, 22 and 29 at Donny’s Skybox Theater at 7 pm. Tickets available at SecondCity.com.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 Sign up for my spamless newsletter!

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Laugh with a Discount! Come See “Witch, Please!”

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Only two more shows left! As “Witch, Please,” moves into our third (!) performance, we’re celebrating fall, Halloween and humor with a huge $4 discount on tickets! Just enter code “MAGIC” when you purchase tickets online.

So if you’re in Chicago or Chicago adjacent, have a sense of humor that needs a little tickle, possibly want a drink (there’s booze) and maaaayyyybbeee a little Halloween candy in honor of the season, come join us Saturday at 7 pm at Donny’s Skybox Theater in the Second City Training Center.

Did I mention there are amazing props made by yours truly? Who doesn’t love a good prop!

Don’t forget, enter “MAGIC” to get $4 off of the ticket price! Hope to see you there.

In or near Chicago in October? Come see “Me Inside Me Presents: Witch, Please,” on October 1, 8, 22 and 29 at Donny’s Skybox Theater at 7 pm. Tickets available at SecondCity.com.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 Sign up for my spamless newsletter!

Our Show is Coming! Our Show is Coming!

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Well, you may have seen a post or two about the sketch comedy writing I do…awkwardly, for me, sometimes, but I do…and we have another show opening soon! October 1, in fact, in Donny’s Skybox Theater at Second City, at 7 pm!

We run for 4 weeks, though we have a break on October 15. So our show dates are (everyone get your calendars ready!) October 1, 8, 22, and 29. What’s the title? Where’s the poster?

We all need a little mystery in our lives, don’t we?

So I’ll be revealing those tantalizing details later, but for now, I need to talk about my non-writing task for the show: Props.

Yep, guys. I’m back on props duty, and I think I’m being far too casual about it. Maybe it’s the procrastination side of me, which could, quite possibly, be both sides. Maybe it’s because I might have it under control; I placed a big order on a one-day sale and saved $20, covering a big percentage of what we needed in the process.

And maybe it’s a little bit of that magic “I’ll get it done.” Because I will.

I assume.

Anyway, I’ll be breaking out the hot glue, the cold glue, and the glue that, if it gets on your fingers, you just have to live with your new hand.

Meanwhile, gather your thirteen dollarses, because you’ll be able to buy tickets very soon!

 

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 Sign up for my spamless newsletter!

Neurotrash, the Second Week

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Our illustrious director came up with this graphic:

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And I just had to share it because I thought it was hilarious. And pretty true. Granted, we’re not Tony Award-winning. But then again, neither is Hamilton.

Yet.

Anyway, our second show went really well, the tweaks were tweaked and it came together really tightly, and our cast killed it, as per the usual. There was no potential food poisoning with the cake on Saturday, as it had been stored in the freezer, and for this Saturday’s performance, we’ll have a new piece.

What kind, you ask?

Whatever is the one that has the hopeful sticker on top with a $1 off coupon saying “We made too much!” The last one was carrot cake. This one? Hmm. I’m thinking something in the vanilla family.

And here’s an interesting little tidbit: for all my friends too far from Chicago to make it to the show, you can stream it! Tickets are $6, but apparently do not count toward our ticket sales, alas. But at least you can see what the fuss is about.

You can also live-stream it on the night of the next performance (Saturday, 10 pm central) if you want to feel like you’re there. You can have even have a drink handy.

You know. Because there’s booze.

So we’re halfway through our run, and the show is only getting hysterical-er. My props are holding up (ish), and we’ve got two more to go!

In or near Chicago? Check out our sketch comedy revue, Me Inside Me Presents: “Neurotrash.” Saturdays at 10 pm, May 7, 14, 21 & 28 in Donny’s Skybox Theater. Tickets $13; Students $11 SCTC Students: $7  Click here for tickets.

Want to know what happens to Jane Storegoer before everyone else? Sign up for my spamless newsletter, and get new episodes in your inbox on Fridays!

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Chicago, Get your Neurotrash Tickets!!

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Tomorrow night, “Neurotrash” rises again for week 2! So, Chicago, if you enjoy hilarious pokes at everything from love to birth control to technology to beloved childhood television series, come join us at Donny’s Skybox Theater in the Second City Training Center at 10 p.m. Saturday night!

You can drink during the show, so there’s that, too. Tickets are $13, unless you are a student, then they are $11, and if you are a Second City Training Center Student, they’re just $7.

And did I mention the drinks?! Also the props are incredible.

Yes, I made the props.

Come join us! It’s a fun night.

In or near Chicago? Check out our sketch comedy revue, Me Inside Me Presents: “Neurotrash.” Saturdays at 10 pm, May 7, 14, 21 & 28 in Donny’s Skybox Theater. Tickets $13; Students $11 SCTC Students: $7  Click here for tickets.

Want to know what happens to Jane Storegoer before everyone else? Sign up for my spamless newsletter, and get new episodes in your inbox on Fridays!

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 

Neurotrash Update

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NoIMG_0112pe, this little guy wasn’t at the show Saturday night, he, like so many other birds, is on the payroll at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and I couldn’t resist sharing the photo.

So our show went off Saturday night, and while I wouldn’t say it was without a hitch, we had a pretty full audience and they really seemed to enjoy it. So yay!

There was one part that made me fear for one of our actors, though. There’s a piece of cake in one of the scenes. As the prop person, I made sure to find the most pathetic looking piece of cake that I could.

It was pretty pathetic.

So it comes time for the scene, and the cake has gotten pathetic-er as time progressed, as I bought it for rehearsal Wednesday, we used it to rehearse Thursday, and now it’s Saturday.

Did I mention it has not been refrigerated?

Right, so the scene goes, and it’s hilarious and tight. And then it’s the end, and somehow the chair holding the cake takes a tumble. The cake hits the stage.

And allegedly bounces. I say “allegedly” not because I don’t believe it did — trust me, at that point the cake was probably capable of driving a car –but because I didn’t see it myself.

After the rebound, the two actors in the scene pick it up. And Kathryn, professional and hilarious as she is, actually bit it.

With her mouth parts.

You’ve got to love live theater. Afterward, I told her I couldn’t believe she actually did it, and neither could she, but let me tell you, the moment killed. Our cast is amazing.

So we have three more performances left! And the digital pieces, which really make the show innovative, were amazing. Being a part of something like this is something that’s difficult to describe.

Insanely curious? Want to see if eating the cake last week turns Kathryn into the Phantom of Donny’s Skybox? In or near Chicago? I think we still have tickets left for this week, but buy them soon on the Second City website:

In or near Chicago? Check out our sketch comedy revue, Me Inside Me Presents: “Neurotrash.” Saturdays at 10 pm, May 7, 14, 21 & 28 in Donny’s Skybox Theater. Tickets $13; Students $11 SCTC Students: $7  Click here for tickets.

Want to know what happens to Jane Storegoer before everyone else? Sign up for my spamless newsletter, and get new episodes in your inbox on Fridays!

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

It’s nearly opening night for Neurotrash!

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So yesterday I spent most of the day in a haze of glue, the window open to fight the fumes as the dollar store has found the one substance impervious to stickiness and made poster board out of it.

Three kinds of glue…yep THREE KINDS OF GLUE…wait, nope, make that four…later, and those props are ready to go. I have a few more things to do before our tech rehearsal tonight, which will be our only shot at the space before we open.

On Saturday. At 10 p.m.

No one can say we didn’t work hard on this show. I may have reached my crafting limit for the year with the props, and I love a good craft.

And here’s the thing: it’s actually funny. Our actors are such an incredible bunch, and we have an amazing integration of digital technology with some shorts and a digitally interactive scene.

Not to mention the props are on point. Because really, its all about the props, right? It’s OK, I know you’re only agreeing with me to make me feel good, but I’ll take it!

So here we go! And if you are in Chicago, it’s definitely a fun way to spend an hour on a Saturday night. The tickets are cheap ($13), and did I mention there’s booze?

In or near Chicago? Check out our sketch comedy revue, Me Inside Me Presents: “Neurotrash.” Saturdays at 10 pm, May 7, 14, 21 & 28 in Donny’s Skybox Theater. Click here for tickets.

Want to know what happens to Jane Storegoer before everyone else? Sign up for my spamless newsletter, and get new episodes in your inbox on Fridays!

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 

‘Me Inside Me’ Rides Again

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Well, it’s week three for “Me Inside Me,” and we’re sold out AGAIN! At least online. Anyone still hoping to catch tonight’s show can check with the box office, though there are no guarantees.

And the sad thing is that, after tonight, we only have one more show left. Alas. It’s been a blast, though. I’ve loved watching how audiences react to our material, seeing the actors tweak their performances week after week.

And speaking of audiences, tonight I have an amazing group of girlfriends coming, friends who have been around to see the ups and downs over the past many years. Friends who have been there from the seeds of inklings of writing through this particular fruition, an outcome I couldn’t have imagined coming. It means a lot to share this moment with them, that they are taking the time from their extremely packed and hectic lives to head downtown and see the show.

One of those friends is a regular reader of this blog, and to her I say a very special thank you.

To all of my friends on this blog and in the blogosphere, I thank you too, for hanging in here with me, and watching this journey. Hmm, I should have saved that for the closing night post. Oh well.

If you can’t get to Chicago, but still want to check out the show, you can stream it live or watch it when it is archived; tickets are $6.

As they say in the biz (I assume. From TV and movies and the like), on with the show!

“Me Inside Me,” A Writing 6 Revue, Fridays 7:30 pm Jan. 8-29 at Donny’s Skybox at Second City. Click for Tickets.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

Sign up for my spamless newsletter. And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

The Rush of Opening Night

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Well, Opening Night was…amazing. It was truly, truly amazing. I can’t describe how incredible it felt to have an audience watching our show, to see them reacting to it. And it was sold out!

Standing in the booth with the other writers and our director, it was crazy to think about how far we had gone in a year. Four of us have been together since Writing 1; we’ve picked up a few others along the way, and somehow we created this thing that has life.

Watching one of the scenes, I leaned over to the woman who wrote it and marveled at how strange it was that we’d talked about the concept back in Writing 4 and there it was on stage. It was incredibly surreal.

I’m just happy that we have three more shows, though I know these weeks will fly by. It will be sad when it is all over, but I suppose that’s the way these things go.

Meanwhile, if you are not in Chicago, but want to see the show, apparently you can stream it! Tickets are $6. And if you’re interested, I wrote the first two songs in the show. If you are in Chicago, come check it out! Audience members raved!

OK, those audience members were my parents, but still, they have pretty good taste.

“Me Inside Me,” A Writing 6 Revue, Fridays 7:30 pm Jan. 8-29 at Donny’s Skybox at Second City. Click for Tickets.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

Sign up for my spamless newsletter. And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 

The Show Approaches!

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Yesterday I talked about new things, and today I’m plunging right in. I’m using the new(ish) template for blogging here on WordPress. It’s weird. But a lot of new things feel weird, until they’re not so new anymore.

That aside, we had our tech rehearsal for our Writing 6 Show, “Me Inside Me” last night, starting at the ungodly hour of 10, that’s right 10. P.M. As the actors did a final full run (!), our director (and teacher), Rob Kozlowski worked on the lighting and sound.

It’s like a real show.

I take it back, it is a real show, and it runs for four weeks, starting this Friday, January 8, 2016, in Donny’s Skybox Theater, just one floor above Second City’s famed mainstage. That’s pretty exciting.

I started this journey on a whim a year ago, not thinking about what would come next, not even thinking about whether I’d take Writing 2 after Writing 1. I remember sitting in the conference room in Producers’ Row in Second City, hearing about the path to a produced show, and thinking, hey, that could be fun.

And here we are.

Last year, I decided to try more, take a few more risks, and here one of them is bearing fruit. I had a lot of misses, no question about that, but last year was absolutely different than the one that came before, and I needed that.

Anyway, philosophizing aside, if you’re in or around Chicago, come check out the show! It’s hilarious (no, I’m not at all biased, why do you ask?) and our cast is insanely talented. And then maybe think about what could be different for you a year from now. You never know.

“Me Inside Me,” A Writing 6 Revue, Fridays 7:30 pm Jan. 8-29 at Donny’s Skybox at Second City. Click for Tickets.

Check out  my full-length novels,  Her Cousin Much Removed,  The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management and Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only), and the sequel, Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) which is now available!

Sign up for my spamless newsletter. And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!