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WE HAVE A SHOW!!!

...that opens tonight!  And runs until June!  Look:

CRASSUS

The Pub Theater, above Fizz Bar

3220 N Lincoln Ave, Chicago

Weds 5/9 – 5/30, 6/13 – 6/20

10 PM

Tickets: $10, available at the door or online.

As Professional Comedians, we’ve worked up a pretty decent sized collection of sketches over the course of the last couple of years. So as a result the running order of the show will change from week to week. That means we’ll constantly be swapping in and out different sketches, adding new stuff we’ve just written and never tried before, and just generally running a fluid and crazy show. Every performance will be different, culminating in the final show where Nat actually won’t even be present. Geoff will do the last show by himself.

It’s going to be an extravaganza of comedy goodness. AND, we’ll have friends opening for us. Here’s the schedule for that:

5/9 Pat Raynor

5/15 Jack & the Wolf

5/23 Lindsay Williams

5/30 Jack & the Wolf

6/13 Claudia Martinez

6/20 Stuart Scotten

So come early, come often, and come have some fun with us.

Underground Lounge 12/7/2011

For Posterity!!

CRASSUS played the Underground Lounge on December 7th with improv stalwarts Old West Family Photo.  Here was our running order:

Bag of Dicks
Quick intro
Full Circle on Film
The Universe Song
Prop Comic
Fisting
OreIda
Guitarman

For the record, we loved the place.  The bar is this dark, grimy hole in the basement of the Links Hall building.  They played blues music until the show opened, and then rock and roll afterwards.  Personally (this is Nat) it was everything I like in a bar.  The stage is pretty sweet too, and the other acts were great.  OWFP in particular had a really good set.

The OWFP people asked us to come back, and we loved it there so we'll be back in January on the 25th.  Come check it out.

The Underground Lounge
952 W Newport (Clark and Sheffield)
Chicago, IL
Show is at 8:00 and is Free

...And We're Back

We took a little bit of a break - Geoff for some big life changes (including having a little baby girl), and me to focus on my true love, crying and masturbating.

That said, we're back to doing Stuff again.  We had a show last Tuesday at SketchTest, which we neglected to mention to anyone, and we have another tomorrow!  Brand new scenes tomorrow too, so if you people have the opportunity you should come out.  It's free!

The Pub Theater's Sketch Test
Fizz Bar, Tuesdays @ 7:30 PM

3220 N Lincoln,

Chicago IL

FREE as a damn bird

BONUS:
 
There's this now.
 
 
And this.
 

So that's fun.  More of those to come.

It's Not a Plug If It Already Happened...

... but Geoff and I did Grafiti last Friday at the Playground.

Scenes performed were:

Fish Are Caught With Pretzel Hooks (Fish Scene)
Homeless Prop Comic
Lessons Learned (Alamore)

I don't know why we bother giving scenes a title longer than three words, because inevitably on the set list we just write things like 'Fish' and 'Soap' and 'Waffles.'  If anyone ever found one of our discarded set lists, they'd think it was the worst grocery list ever.

Anyway, the audience was great.  Our first two scenes hit really well.  We still got our laughs on Alamore, but it didn't go over as well as previous performances (Rockford, what up?)  I'm not sure if that was a show placement thing or if our performances were just off, but whatever.  I'm quibbling over something where you readers probably couldn't care less.

One other thing of note: a buddy of mine from my Intro Voice Over class was there with his group Big Dog Eat Child.  Their set consisted of them doing a bunch of comedic hip hop.  It was great.  Not sure how often they perform live (they do a lot of video stuff) but they're worth checking out.

Here's the video for 'What Up Little Kid?'  Enjoy:


I mean, who doesn't hate kids, amirite?

Notes from Rockford

Posted this over at my other blog.  Enjoy!

Last Friday, I had a chance to do something that I've always wanted to do. I got to travel to another city and perform comedy. And then they gave me money.


Sure, that city was Rockford; it was only about an hour and a half away; and the amount of money was a mere $150 split two ways, but you have to start somewhere.

Here's how everything came about:

Just before RvD's Sketchfest show in early January, I received a random email from someone I didn't know asking if RvD was 'available for booking.' There wasn't much info in the email, but I had the blessing of the group to at least ask him what the hell he was talking about.

Rockford does this show called "First Fridays" where the first Friday of every month they put on a concert/comedy show/art show. They usually have a couple of standups, a band and then a local Rockford sketch/improv group. That sketch group wasn't able to do the February show and, since the people in that sketch group had seen RvD, they wanted to know if we would come out and do the show. They couldn't offer much, but they would feed us drinks and food afterwards.

Well, it's hard to get a group of seven people to drop everything on a Friday night to run an hour and a half outside of the city to do a show. Particularly when you would have to put that show together in less than a month. One would need to be crazy to bother with that.

Well, luckily I know two who are crazy enough.

And so Geoff and I put together some Crassus sketches we had performed previously and off we went to Rockford, our significant others in tow.

We showed up at the event. It was at a cool 250-300 seat theatre in downtown Rockford. The event coordinator people whisked us off to the backstage area, told us how excited they were to have us, let us know that we were actually headlining and then got us some water.

We performed the set. The house was about as full as our sketchfest show. The audience loved us. The event people were really thankful that we came out. They paid us. They took us next store to this cool bar called Kryptonite (which I would highly recommend if you are in Rockford ever - good atmostphere, live music, great freshly made foccacia) and basically treated us as though we deserved to be treated well.

You contrast that with your typical show in Chicago, where sketch comedy and improv is literally everywhere and you have to beg friends and coworkers to even come to the show. It's just refreshing.

So here's to you, Rockford. Thanks for having us.

Post Show Ramblings: Show #3 PICTURES

We had one wife and one girlfriend in the audience Friday night with camera phones, and the results are pictures!

Artsy, am I right?

For posterity purposes, the running order for our first Grafitti show at the playground was:

Full Circle on Film

In My Shed (Song)

Reaching Out

The Haircut

Guitar Song

A good five scene line up, that's a decent chunk of show, right?  Combined with two other groups, we made it an evening.

Full Circle, Reaching Out and the Guitar Song have all been done previously at SketchTest.  Still, it was fun to pull some of those back out and try them for another audience.  The Guitar Song hit for the second consecutive time, so I think we have a keeper there with an idea or two to make it a little tighter.

The new sketches were In My Shed and The Haircut, both of which did pretty well.  I personally felt a little constricted when singing In My Shed, which I think might have been a result of doing this particular song for the first time in front of the audience and the fact that I was still flubbing some lines while practicing.  I think this will be a case of the song sounding better the more times I perform it for people.



The Haircut was a lot of fun.  It's a weird little piece and Geoff does a great job with the eccentric character, which makes it much easier to play the straightman.  Plus, I got to wear a wig:

We have another show on Tuesday at Fizz Bar.  Y'all should come out.

Look!  Love!