Reprint from the July 20 Dallas Morning News
Little Plays Prove to be Very Big Fun
Lawson Taitte
Issue date: 9/30/04 Section: GSB News
Connoisseurs of the hip and the odd now have one more item for their calendars. Abbreviated Enlightenment's ochen chotto schpiel:"very little play" is just as strange and amusing as its moniker - which translates words from Russian, Japanese and German.
Actually, the last word should be plural. The show, which runs little more than an hour, consists of tiny bits of humor, improv, music and poetry thrown together in random order. Producer- directors Leslie and Brandon Fletcher, who actually live in Chicago, have assembled a cast of actors, improv performers, musicians - even a painter who created original collages during the show for the world premiere on Saturday. The participants and the components may change every week.
Some of the very little plays were very funny indeed - all written by the performers, based on their own real-life experiences. That's what made "Weird Stepmother Game Show" so piquant. Holly Hickman and the show's drummer, Daniel Lyons, competed. An audience volunteer had to judge whose stories were weirder - the one about the Russian mail-order stepmother who died in a most unusual way won out.
Matthew Byrd's "Fagawalis Homobrex" was a TV commercial advertising a new drug - that turned a couple's gay son into a football star. Kathleen Vaught's "Spread-Eagle Shocker - or a Train Is Coming That Can't Be Stopped" offered a first-time mom's adventures in the labor-and-delivery room.
The audience gets nametags with wild aliases upon entering. A few get put on the spot to play word games. The programs are bingo cards that you fill in as each segment of the show comes up.
The two improvisers, Spencer Prokop and Maxine Shapiro, even give us a little critique of the show so far. Ms. Shapiro hit a sympathetic chord in the audience when she kept repeating, "I didn't get it," about Andra Laine's rather pretentious poem accompanied by slides depicting the ravages of war.
Actually, the last word should be plural. The show, which runs little more than an hour, consists of tiny bits of humor, improv, music and poetry thrown together in random order. Producer- directors Leslie and Brandon Fletcher, who actually live in Chicago, have assembled a cast of actors, improv performers, musicians - even a painter who created original collages during the show for the world premiere on Saturday. The participants and the components may change every week.
Some of the very little plays were very funny indeed - all written by the performers, based on their own real-life experiences. That's what made "Weird Stepmother Game Show" so piquant. Holly Hickman and the show's drummer, Daniel Lyons, competed. An audience volunteer had to judge whose stories were weirder - the one about the Russian mail-order stepmother who died in a most unusual way won out.
Matthew Byrd's "Fagawalis Homobrex" was a TV commercial advertising a new drug - that turned a couple's gay son into a football star. Kathleen Vaught's "Spread-Eagle Shocker - or a Train Is Coming That Can't Be Stopped" offered a first-time mom's adventures in the labor-and-delivery room.
The audience gets nametags with wild aliases upon entering. A few get put on the spot to play word games. The programs are bingo cards that you fill in as each segment of the show comes up.
The two improvisers, Spencer Prokop and Maxine Shapiro, even give us a little critique of the show so far. Ms. Shapiro hit a sympathetic chord in the audience when she kept repeating, "I didn't get it," about Andra Laine's rather pretentious poem accompanied by slides depicting the ravages of war.