Tonight starts a four-week run for Philly Improv Theater at the Shubin Theater. The month of May will be jam packed with sketch, stand-up, and improv from Philly’s best alternative comedians. Tonight, The Monthly Hour with James Hesky kicks things off at 9pm followed by stand-up comedy showcase Hey Everybody (which has free admission if you go to the 9pm show.) You can see more of PHIT’s schedule online.
Also tonight, Rookie Card will have their final Monday show at the Raven Lounge before moving their monthly improv show to Saturday night. The show will feature improv from Rookie Card and Grimmachio and stand-up from Tim Butterly and all kicks off at 9pm.
Tuesday will bring another Free Improv at Connie’s Ric Rac to the venue in the Italian Market. This month, the show will feature sets from Deleted Scenes, Bed Savage, Self-esteem Motivators, Fowl Play, ApocaLips, Kait and Andrew, and Ralph Jess Jason Emily and Mike. The show starts at 9pm and is free, of course.
6ABC recently ran this story about Helium Comedy Club and their upcoming Philly’s Phunniest Person contest. The video shows many local stand-ups at a recent open mic at the club. Keep an eye out for appearances by Pat House, Alex Grubard, Ed McGonigal, Chase Wexler, David Ray Agyekum, James Hesky, and Aaron Hertzog.
Aaron is joined by Philly Improv Theater Education Director Mike Marbach to talk about the improv scene in Philadelphia. Mike talks about the PHIT core curriculum as well as their new Conservatory program. They also talk about Mike’s experience training and performing in Chicago as well as his approach to directing. Listen to this week’s episode below and subscribe on iTunes.
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This week, Aaron is joined by Blake Wexler, a stand-up comedian that started in Philadelphia at the tender age of 15, moved on to do comedy in Boston while attending Emerson, and now lives and performs in Los Angeles. Blake and Aaron get silly. Listen to this week’s episode below and subscribe on iTunes.
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This week, Matt Holmes joins Aaron to talk about his start and history in performing comedy, the rise of improv in Philadelphia over the past ten years, and Matt’s approach to improv from his point of view as both a performer and director. You can listen to this week’s episode below, or subscribe on iTunes.
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This week, Aaron sits down with writer and comedian Luke Giordano. The two talk about Luke’s transition from Philadelphia to Los Angeles to write for television, his experience writing for Two and a Half Men, and his thoughts and ideas about comedy. Then Luke tries to recruit Aaron to move to LA. Listen to this week’s episode below and subscribe on iTunes.
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You can check out more of Luke’s work on his daily humor web site Everything You Like is Stupid. You can also listen to him interview some of the most famous and influential people in the world every week on The Newsmakers Podcast.
Signups have already begun for the second annual March Madness Comedy Competition. Comedians will compete in opening rounds held at various open mics throughout the city where audience vote will determine who moves on to the next round. To sign up, send an email with your name, phone number, email address, and how long you have been performing stand-up to bobbyfinstock77@gmail.com.
Improvisers can throw their names in the hat for the 2012 Troika tournament. Nine teams of three performers will be chosen at random to form new trios and compete to be named champion. Interested performers can send their name, contact info, and names of groups they have performed with (one interesting twist, the teams will be made of people who have never performed together before) to troikashow@gmail.com.
Finally, this week marks the return of a full two-week schedule of shows at Philly Improv Theater. You can find their full schedule on the PHIT website and, as always, the shows are also listed on our calendar.
This sketch just debuted at Keep The Change Ya Filthy Animal: A Yuletide Variety Show – Secret Pants’ now annual holiday sketch show at Johnny Brenda’s. I stood in a room full of laughing audience members and fellow comedians who were amazed at the consistent, fresh, hilarious concepts and execution Secret Pants always brings to the table. This sketch is a prime example of that. Do yourself a favor and just enjoy this sketch, don’t do as I did and sit there wondering who plays the back of Paul Triggiani’s head (my guess is Brian Kelly).
Bird Text - The Real Househusbands of Philadelphia Occupy Philly
The Bird Text fellas combine their breakout characters with the hot-button-issue-of-the-later-half-of-the-year-that-disappeared-as-soon-as-the-cops-chased-everybody-out to make for some great moments in man-on-the-street comedy. This was the perfect third act for the Househusbands characters, a great way to keep the idea fresh and branch out to new territory.
Camp Woods – Detective Berry
Camp Woods has been killing it lately. Every show is packed with tightly written sketches that start with strong premises and are full of fearless performances from each of their members. I probably spend too much time over-analyzing comedy, and lately I’ve been thinking about Camp Woods and their group dynamic. The group is full of versatile performers who know how to write for each other and where they all fit in. They also know how to take a great premise and squeeze every laugh out of it with a combination of big, balls-out performances, and small nuanced hilarious moments. This sketch is a great example of that. The idea it self is laugh-out-loud silly, but the sketch is jam packed with little moments that make it great. From Billy Bob Thompson’s facial expressions to Brendan Kennedy’s reaction shots to JP Boudwin’s bewilderment to Sam Narisi’s great delivery of the line “it all makes so much sense”. Even the way Billy says the word “cum” makes me laugh.
I’m sort of cheating here by including The Feeko’s entire set from this year’s Philly Sketch Fest. Only “sort of” because the entire show ran together and was connected beautifully so it seemed like one complete sketch. The show started with a “body switch” premise, so I was hooked from the start. The set continued with a mix of new and previously seen ideas blended together to take us on a trip to see the Feeko Brothers’ British counterparts, watch Billy as he became possessed by a Demon hell bent on getting some marijuana, and watch as Billy and Christian frantically tried to return to their own bodies. Plus, the whole thing was sponsored by a quaint little restaurant on the corner of Market and Fifth.
For the rest of the year, we are going to run lists from you, our readers (and some that we wrote ourselves) of our Top 5 of 2011. You’ll hear from many Philadelphia comedians, as well as some fans of comedy about their favorite sketches, bits, shows, and moments of the past year. If you’d like to write a list – go ahead, do it! and send it to us at contact@witout.net
Our first list comes from Executive Director of the Philly Improv Theater, Greg Maughan, and includes his favorite $5 passwords for PHIT shows from the past year.
5. “Everything You Like Is Stupid Dot Com”: I can’t say this password was really all that funny, but I do read Luke Giordano’s website as a result of having it’s domain merciless pounded into my brain every time I went to his show. (By the way Luke, I’ll be sending you an invoice for this product placement).
4. ”Meatspin”:Alex Gross‘ passwords for The Gross Show have taught me more about obscure – and in the eyes of religious conservatives, deviant – sexual practices than anything else since Steve Babcock’s asides in my 8th Grade Health class. For the love of God, please don’t say I didn’t warn if you decide to Google this one and end up offended.
3. ”I am the Dread Pirate Roberts, there will be no survivors.”: I think there were actually people who came to TV Party‘s show dedicated to Fairy Tales just for the privilege of getting to say this line and then give us $5.
2. “Boehner? I hardly know her!”: It was hard picking my favorite Chip Chantry pun-based password, but the political junkie in me won out on this one (even if it does require you to mispronounce the House Speaker’s last name). A close second was August’s ”So IRENE’S Over, and I Says to Him…” the day after the hurricane hit Philly.
1. “Friendship”:Aaron Hertzog completely ignored my rule that the $5 password had to be different each show all year long, but he was so friendly about it I didn’t have the heart to tell him he needed to stop. Now I’ve told him so publicly though, so if I had money to bet I would say that his next show will have a different word… but the root will still be “friend”.
Tonight The Sideshow returns to The Arts Parlor (1170 S. Broad St) for a night of improv comedy. Tonight’s show will feature a brand new team performing for the first time, Iron Lung will be debuting a new form, and Get a Room and Fowl Play will make their Sideshow debuts.
Next Tuesday, at L’etage (624 S. 6th St.) Camp Woods brings us Camp Woods Plus – an evening of sketch comedy featuring the group and two special guests. This month the show will feature Philly sketch group Local Holiday Miracle, and 2010 ECNY “Best Sketch Comedy Group in New York” award winners Murderfist.
Last week, TU Comedy, Temple University’s stand-up comedy club put on a show at Pub Webb on campus. The show featured six members of the club, plus James Hesky and Aaron Hertzog, two Temple alumni. City Paper’s Critical Mass blog wrote an article about the show here.
New York comedy/ sex show Paid or Pain is coming to Philadelphia and is looking for performers. Paid or Pain is a show where comedians perform and the crowd votes whether to pay the comedian, or have them tortured by their “house dominatrix.” The show will feature a burlesque act, sex toy giveaways, and sex therapy with a special guest comedian. Sound like fun? interested comedians can send their clips and info to paidorpain@gmail.com
Another reminder that voting is ongoing for The 2011 Witout Awards. Any member of the Philadelphia Comedy Community can take the survey and vote for their favorite performers, bits, and shows of the past year.
