Matt Beard, courtesy of Cirque du Soleil

Except, well. You know. We didn't.

When I saw that Cirque du Soleil was setting up their tent at the Portland Expo Center this summer, I freaked out. I wanted to go. I’ve seen a couple Cirque productions before, and they’re fun. But buying tickets brought back some bad feelings. Would my scheduling hubris bring another strain of COVID? Tickets to this show are expensive—we're talking $40-$200 range! Did I want to roll the dice on a several-hundred-dollar family event during a time when stuff was still getting canceled left and right?

I hemmed and hawed. And I decided against going. But then I was asked to review the show for the Mercury, and offer insight into the exact issue at hand: Is Cirque du Soleil Alegría worth the $100-ish per seat price, and is it in the age-appropriate ballpark sweet-spot for a five-year-old?

Now, here I am, shouting from the rooftops of the internet: Go to this show! It’s wonderful!

The particular strain of the expansive Cirque universe, currently visiting Portland for a month, is called Alegría, meaning "joy" in Spanish. A remount of a popular 1994 version, Alegría weaves a story of a kingdom that has lost its king, and according to the description: "the power struggle at play between the old order and a new movement yearning for hope and renewal.” Okay! It could also be described as: beautiful people in sparkly clothes flying all over the dang place.

Pictured: beautiful people in sparkly clothes flying all over the dang place. Matt Beard, courtesy of Cirque du Soleil

As we were seated in the second row—which would normally have set us back $199 a seat (though there are price breaks for child tickets, thank the lords of Alegría), we felt heat from the flames of the fire jugglers. We were blasted with confetti. We worried the acrobats were going to fall onto our faces. It was exciting! But it also had some drawbacks: We had to crane our necks all the way for some of the highest aerial stunts. And the fire stuff was a little bit scary for my kid that close. (Pro-tip: This is a situation where it’s acceptable to lie to a child. I told her the fire was fake, and she bought it.)

In the words of '90s R&B singer Vee Sales: Step back, you're dancing kinda close. Matt Beard, courtesy of Cirque du Soleil

Next time we’ll do one of the matinee showings, which are plentiful on the weekends. There's also a Cirque Week promotion running through Jun 26, where ticket-buyers can find seats as inexpensive as $39—although they're already pretty slim and in the far back.

That said, while the circus tent seems gigantic from the outside, it’s pretty intimate once you get in there—I don’t think there is a bad seat in the house.

Part of me worries that giving this glowing review and encouraging you all to buy tickets to Alegría will curse the show and trigger a fresh wave of COVID. But superstition neither causes nor prevents new strains. All my plans point to going back "under the big top," and I know Cirque du Soleil: Alegría is more than dazzling enough to keep my mind occupied.

Cirque du Soleil: Alegría plays at the Portland Expo Center, 2060 N Marine, though July 17, showtimes and tickets here

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Kimber K. Shade (left) and Isaiah Esquire (right) ASHLI BRAZELL

At first glance, the overlapping dates of Portland's Pride Parade and Juneteenth might strike some as peculiar, inconvenient, inappropriate, and perhaps even offensive. However, a deeper look reveals a fundamental overlap of all liberation narratives and humanity’s continued struggle against oppression. Long before Black, transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson threw anything at Stonewall, former slave William Dorsey Swann was crowned America’s first ever Queen of Drag. Since then, the Black Queer community has remained at the forefront of cultural advance, from Audre Lorde and James Baldwin to Alvin Ailey and Stormé DeLarverie.

What better way to illustrate the relationship between these two historic events than with an event to celebrate the intersection of Black and queer identity? And who better to produce such an event than two local legends who both reside at that very intersection?

In February, Henry Felton (Kimber K. Shade, of the House of Shade) and Isaiah Equire (one half of local production power duo iZohnny and the team behind Boyerism) created an event where attendees can celebrate both queerness and Blackness, as their whole selves.

House of Ada’s frenzied poison frog mating ritual Photograph by John Johnson/HBO Max

SPOILERS AHEAD for third season of HBO's Legendary:

The House of Ada debuted in the second half of Legendary’s two-part season opener, but that’s no reason to skip the first episode. You’ll listen to new judge Keke Palmer shove Trey Songz off a cultural cliff, performing her song “Bottoms Up” with the season two winners, the House of Miyake-Mugler. You’ll sample the masculine eye candy that is House of Alpha Omega, the show’s first all-male house. You’ll cringe when judge Leiomy Maldonado delivers a frigid score of '3' to the House of Lyght. You’ll even wish bone apple tea to the House of Revlon, the show’s first European house—from Paris.

House of Ada is noted as Legendary’s first house of all non-binary dancers. It's also a house of almost all-immigrants, but the show's editors gave the first kiki house distinction to the House of Juicy Couture, who entered the ball right before our heroes. SO I guess that's technically true? Papi Ada’s silent fingertip clap backstage—shown during Juicy Couture's introduction—would seem especially salty without this context.

The House of Ada’s introduction feels like a backhanded setup for future greatness. Ada (pronounced as both “aye-da” and “ah-da” on the show by Papi and his children) doesn’t get the same goodwill from the judges that Juicy Couture earned by being the new kids on the block. Portland’s premier house takes shade from both the judges onstage, and from their competitors watching offstage.

Additionally, Vanity Ada was sidelined due to her COVID-19 diagnosis, but Judge Jameela Jamil only noticed her absence at the end of the performance—and not in a bad way. Papi, Virgo, Sophora, and Babi Ada delivered a feisty fairy fantasy. Virgo pedals his legs gracefully while in a handstand as Papi, Sophora, and Babi duckwalked like they were enchanting a mushroom circle. The house dipped, and Papi rose, relishing in his nasty-good Ariana Grande high pony. Leiomy and stylist Law Roach gave Ada stern scores of '6' and '5,' due to their stage costume style and supposedly over-polished choreography. None of that bothered Keke Palmer.

“Now, I didn’t know Portland could get down like that!” Keke exclaimed to applause. She awarded Ada an '8.'

Reality show connoisseurs can smell a potentially lucrative villain edit a mile away—the only thing better than winning is proving why you should have won. But knowing how sweet the House of Ada’s onscreen members are in real life, it’s hard to buy them as TV villains. Ada’s storyline, so far, explores their desire to put Portland on the ballroom map, and holds the heavy price of failure over Ada’s heads. What viewers hopefully get from Legendary is the House of Ada’s journey to national prominence, where Portland is only a footnote in the story of their greatness. Their competitors’ dismissive remarks give the viewers permission to underestimate Ada’s precision, which may prove to be a fatal mistake.

Ada tied for the lowest score—with the House of Alain Milki—of their first ball. The judges chose Ada to face off against the House of Du’Mure-Versailles for a chance to save themselves from elimination. It’s a gamble that first-time viewers have no way of knowing the payoff.

Since we will talk about episode three in this recap, let’s just say Papi Ada was wise to choose Virgo Ada as the house’s defender. Virgo took the judge’s critiques of being too polished and exuded charisma, energy, and improv prowess. Virgo won episode two by being the superior dancer—causing Leiomy to audibly gasp when Virgo popped up on the floor between Cotton Du’Mure-Versailles’ legs, and Law to concede that Ada deserved to stay on their own merits.

But so the pendulum swings. Ada scored higher during the Animal Queendom ball of episode three, which was guest judged by Brazilian pop star Anitta. The house’s frenzied poison frog mating ritual routine was among Anitta’s favorite performances, earning a '10' for their Cirque du Soleil-tier costuming. Despite post-COVID fatigue, a frog queen persona served the recovered Vanity Ada well for her onscreen stage debut. Leiomy and Law were more generous.

Ada unfortunately failed the challenge of the night—the 360 degree dip that Leiomy personally innovated in the mid '00s—but Leiomy showed a softer side in awarding Ada a higher score, even formally welcoming them to ballroom (the House of Ada was founded nearly ten years ago, but viewers at home don’t know that). By contrast, the historic House of Labeija earned the ball’s lowest score, but stayed in the competition due to immunity from Keke’s Gag Flag.

So ended Ada’s screen time that episode, save for a few backstage reaction shots. The safest houses arguably got less screen time than the ball’s worst and best houses—a reminder that "safe" can be a dirty word, especially when exposure turns into payment. House of Ada proved twice now that they deserve the show's substantial cash prize and global recognition. With seven houses remaining, we have another chance to see how high Portland can boost the House of Ada, as they fight on for glory.

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The promotional poster for Legendary Season 3, featuring members of House of Ada. Top row, left to right: Vanity Ada, Papi Ada, Virgo Ada; Bottom row, left to right: Sophora Ada, Babi Ada HBO, courtesy of House of ada

If you sympathized through the trials of local designers on Project Runway or dipped deeper into the city's food scene when it hosted Top Chef, you can now dive into the third season of HBO's ball culture competition Legendary and see hometown heroes House of Ada compete for $100,000 and the show's title of “legendary status."

Ball culture has been pretty well explained to the mainstream at this point—certain touchstones would be the controversial but groundbreaking 1990 documentary Paris is Burning and the award-winning FX drama Pose—but suffice to say ballroom culture is the scene Madonna stole vogueing from, and there's a whole lexicon of other styles and dances that started there as well.

House of Ada's house father Daniel Girón, called Papi Ada, couldn't reveal many details about where his house eventually landed in the show's ranking, but he says he and his house’s children will cement the Pacific Northwest’s place on the ballroom map.

"We're the first gender non-confirming house on the show," Girón told the Mercury. "Making it on the show and getting to represent in that way is huge. We are representative of queer immigrants in ballroom."

Originally from Veracruz, Mexico, Girón moved to Portland in 2012 to study dance. He credits his housemate Kumari Suraj, who goes by Vanity Ada, with introducing and mentoring him to the city's ballroom culture scene.

"[Vanity] was the one making the big moves," Girón said. “They were the person bringing real ballroom legends to Portland to teach workshops, to host events. I was the one making moves to train myself and train the community—establishing the community,” Girón said.

Unfortunately, Girón couldn't bring his whole house to Legendary, and had to select between his children. You can expect to see some prime moves from Sophora Ada and Babi Ada, two of Girion's most promising students. And make sure to look for Virgo Ada, who is actually Girón’s former rival. Before Virgo moved to Portland to join the House of Ada, the two often faced off in competitions, tactically pitted against one another due to complementary features and styles.

“You never know what you’re going to get when you put us against each other, but you definitely know you’re going to get a show." Girón said of the show's performances. "It’s going to get hyped. The room will explode."

He described the house's competition aesthetic as a modern ballroom update on the pixies from Disney’s 1940 Fantasia—which makes sense as House of Ada takes its name from the Spanish word "hada," meaning "fairy."

“It can be as simple as monochromatic earth tones—bringing that into our looks—or the way we do our makeup, having a little bit of glitter as representation of being this shiny little magical creature,” Girón said.

For all their natural sparkle, the house members auditioned for four months before securing their spot in the season's competition. Due to the pandemic, the process involved daily testing and adherence to strict social distancing guidelines.

“A reality TV show is a completely different type of work environment,” Girón said. “There’s a difference between working full time and working the full day: getting up, having a schedule, you’re doing a photoshoot, you’re doing an interview, you’re rehearsing, you’re eating, then you have to go back to the wardrobe team. You’re creating not just choreography, but also music from scratch, concepts. It’s just nonstop work, work work. But it’s also what we already do—just super amplified times ten."

“I trust that our work will speak highly of us," Girón said. "We really got a chance to represent hard for the Pacific Northwest and tell our story as best as we could, so I’m proud of what we accomplished."

Though House of Ada doesn’t have any public watch party appearances planned for the Legendary third season premiere, Girón said the house will judge its upcoming birthday ball: It’s Raining 10s, where Girón hopes to better unite West Coast houses from Seattle and Tacoma.

“When people talk about ballroom, the extensions of it, there’s New York, there’s LA, there’s Chicago, and there’s a few other places that are well known for being established," Girón said. "They’re really starting to see Paris ballroom and the talent there. But I hope before they skip all the way to another continent, they bring it back to the US, because the kiki scene in the Pacific Northwest has been doing it for eight years, and we’re ready to make some noise."

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Shelley McLendon (left) and Michael Fetters (right) are the Aces. courtesy of the aces

Their latest show Lives of the Party runs a gamut of inventive set-ups—people dragged into musicals against their will, Blazers game "Kiss Cam" victims, a socially anxious octopus and starfish pair at a party, etc.—tied together with seamless scene transitions à la sketch comedy TV series like Wonder Showzen or Mr. Show. The Aces do it without camerawork and with a modest number of props—though there's a scene-stealing starfish costume in the mix.

The Aces are so beloved for their animal impressions that they put together a whole show of animal sketches in 2016. But Lives of the Party has one of Fetters' best animal characters yet: a tender elder dog that is full of surprises for his workaholic-from-home owner.

Fetters impression of a dog worked on such a level that we not only laughed, but began to have concerns that the show would take an Old Yeller turn, as they repeatedly returned to Fetters' shaky-leg canine adventures. As a critic, I believe this city is best served knowing what happens to the dog, and I just want all sketch-curious readers to know: that fantasy dog is fine.

Leaving the rest of the show's mystery intact, we can only applaud the Aces for another finely written and executed show. Both McLendon and Fetters are cool comedians who—much like rock and rollers the Ramones or the Strokes—probably wouldn't put up with a critic's attempts to analyze their work. But it's worth noting that a large percentage of the duo's previous shows involved confident, worldly characters—at least one revolved around swingers hosting an orgy. It's hard not to see the influence of our anxious and insecure world onstage, though there isn't a whisper of current events.

Lives of the Party celebrates ten years of shows from the Aces and over that time the pair have fine-tuned their performances into beautiful, short-attention-span weaves of rolling gags that circle back and land perfectly. Both always credit much of their show timing to director Loren Hoskins and the Aces' longtime prop master Marshall Bradley.

Portland doesn't have much of a sketch comedy scene. And what it does have is largely held aloft by the Siren Theater, which hosted three years of the Portland Sketch Comedy Festival—drawing comedians nationally and from Canada—before the pandemic sent all venues into a very unromantic Sleeping Beauty mode. We're excited about the festival's return in July.

In a city mostly known for stand-up, where the up-and-coming energy seems focused on improv, the Aces are a unique force of creative comedy in this city. They deserve praise for their excellently written scripts and powerhouse performances that clock-in at a refreshing, no-intermission-necessary 60-75 minutes.

The Aces present Lives of the Party, The Siren Theater, 315 NW Davis, 8 pm Fri March 18, Sat March 19, and Fri March 25, $15-20, tickets

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Taylor Mac's A 24-Decade History of Popular Music SARAH WALKER

But the MacArthur Genius theater performer returns to this fertile valley with a bang at the end of March, performing the abridged version of A 24-Decade History of Popular Music in concert with Portland’s Symphony Orchestra. For this project, Portland is a sounding board. Taylor Mac has never performed the show live with an orchestra before, and it’s monumental that judy chose ours—Taylor Mac’s preferred pronouns are judy.

Previous concerts of the abridged 24-Decade have involved audience reenactments and towering dick balloons, not to mention wonderful musical reimaginings of classic songs that sent critics swooning. The Mercury spoke with Taylor Mac about what the audience could expect from the groundbreaking show.

Taylor Mac remained coy throughout our interview, but the show’s management eventually revealed that the Portland show will present “new arrangements of iconic hits of their time from American standard ‘Only You’ to early ’80s anthem ‘Gloria.’”

I’ve had “Gloria” stuck in my head ever since.

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Juliet Mylan as Ally (left) and Naomi Jackson as Lisa (right) in The Queers COURTESY OF FUSE THEATRE ENSEMBLE

As a playwright, Gillette focuses on characters who are healing from transphobia. Sometimes they’re parsing microaggressions: daily, degrading insults born from both innocence and intention. In other moments, her characters reel from chilling, overt threats of sexual violence. But somehow, with Gillette behind the lines, the dialogue on stage flies quickly and with disarming candor.

Gillette’s first staged play, The Queers, is significant, not only for her skill and vision, but because it’s one of the only trans-written plays in Oregon that was also produced with an ensemble cast of transgender actors.

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Delphon "DJ" Curtis Jr. in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, during the sold out January 2020 staging. Photo by Owen Carey/Courtesy of Portland Center Stage at The Armory

Shows sold out. Reviewers raved. In many ways, the dynamic production exceeded the original subject matter—John Cameron Mitchell’s 2001 cult film of the same name. In the hands of a capable and passionate team of artists, the work transformed.

You could look back on the January 2020 run of Hedwig and the Angry Inch as one of the last nice things that happened before the pandemic presented a surprise two year and counting pop quiz to the world. PCS had already planned to remount the successful show in 2021, before the pandemic dashed and delayed that idea.

Now the production strides forth on towering heels. Delphon “DJ” Curtis Jr. reprises the lead role he reinvented—singing “Don't you know me Portland, Oregon? / I'm the new Berlin wall / Try and tear me down!”

This remount presents the same cast, crew, and set—an elaborate, near-abandoned American mall—and the same knock-out performances that, once again, electrify every (angry) inch of the Ellyn Bye’s tiny downstairs performance space.

All that said, it’s hard to deny that the ghostly visage of the pandemic still casts its haze over the experience. For one thing, this rock musical feels like the type of show that would pair well with hefty glasses of wine, so the audience can get nice and lubricated for the raucous performance.

But the pandemic put a lid on that aspect of the Armory. At previous performances, you could still order at the little main lobby bar, even if you could no longer take your drink inside the theater, but at our show the bar was completely closed.

Getting into Portland Center Stage felt extremely sterile—which isn’t a bad thing and could be assuring to many. The staff are serious about checking your vaccination status and making sure everyone is masked. We understood, but the uniform lines felt extremely odd against the revolutionary energy of what we were on our way to see.

The front row seats of the theater—where Curtis Jr. had gyrated into the delighted faces of septenegatian attendees just two years before—were reserved now for stuffed animals. As we waited for the show to begin, the bright and crowded theater felt downright tense.

But then Ithica Tell—playing Hedwig’s stage director / husband Yitzhak—rolled into the room and started warming up the crowd. Similar to the 2020 production, the audience enters with a feeling that the show has already begun. Yitzhak loudly monologued a series of complaints about Hedwig, setting the stage for the couple’s duality-laden drama.

By the time Hedwig made her appearance—descending a busted escalator in a denim onesie and cape, absolutely annihilating “Tear Me Down”—we’d forgotten anything felt weird at all.

Part of the magic of Hedwig is the musical’s intention—from the very outset—to break down barriers between audience and performer. In its sweeter moments, it’s an acknowledgement. In wilder ones, it’s Hedwig dancing on tables and thrusting fairly close to the audience seated up front.

Returning to live theater with this production, after the distance that many of us have maintained for two years, is nothing short of a shock to the system. But a strong reminder of how good theatre can be and why we missed it so much.

Ellyn Bye Studio at the Armory, Wed-Sun, through Mar 6, tickets & info here, $25 & Up

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Tommy Bo in The Great Leap. Alec Lugo

Introduced to China around 1895, it was eventually chosen as one of the country’s two national sports during the Great Leap Forward—a brutal five-year period starting in 1958 which preceded Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

In 1979, China was first introduced to American NBA culture via exhibition games between two of its teams (the Chinese national team and the Bayi Rockets) and the Washington Wizards (FKA the Bullets). By 1992, the NBA allowed its contracted players to participate in the Olympics, the same year China's women's team took home the silver medal. This cross-pollination laid the groundwork for the culture that produced greats like Yao Ming, Li Nan, and Yi Jianlian.

Lauren Yee, the second most-produced playwright of the 2019-20 season, pulled from these histories and the stories of her father for her eighth script, The Great Leap. Directed by Zi Alikhan and staged at the Armory in a joint production by Portland Center Stage and Artists Repertory Theatre, The Great Leap is a surprisingly emotional story, weaving a history of high-stakes personal drama and international intrigue. Alikhan commands a buzzy cast in a show that could easily bring sports fans to the stage (and non-jocks as well). Anyone who regrets missing Yee’s most recent play, Cambodian Rock Band, when it was staged locally in 2020 should not repeat their mistake.

The Great Leap opens as a letter sent from Wen Chang (Kenneth Lee, Alan Yang on HBO’s Search Party) to a person yet unknown. The perspective shifts from the summer of the Tiananmen Square Massacre to a “friendship game” between Beijing and UC Berkeley 18 years prior. Wen’s letter notes a cycle of 18 years, from that first year of Western adulthood when a player’s life truly begins, to another 18 years when their career invariably ends due to their American lifestyle of going hard nonstop.

Wen and China learned modern Western basketball from a brassy American coach, Saul (Darius Pierce, Nicolas Cage’s sketchy friend Edgar in 2021's Pig), though they never forgot his boorish insults or ballsy attitude. The fire in Saul’s belly is nearly extinguished by 1989, until he’s relentlessly pursued by Manford (Tommy Bo), a mouthy 17-year-old with a near-even mix of attitude and talent. With inside help from his college-age cousin Connie (Sami Ma), Manford clinches his spot as the first Chinese-American player to represent the US abroad, where, as Connie warns him, he navigates the differences of a country that’s infinitely more complex than what he's accustomed to.

The stakes are high and the consequences dire for all of The Great Leap’s players. Failure comes with disastrous consequences, and Yee’s writing ensnares the audience in her characters’ fates. Some developments might be predictable for casual viewers of sports movies, but it’s the important details that Yee sets up in the earliest scenes and reveals at the very end that build the suspense. This is especially evident in the rapid-fire, split-perspective soliloquy climax, in which Bo's pantomimed, slow-motion dribbling is as graceful and wavey as modern dance.

Fans of cocky teen boys will find Manford’s brattiness worth the price of admission alone, as he lays down his pride while processing his late mother’s connection to basketball. The revelatory moments are tearjerkers, especially when the choices being faced seem impossible for comfortable Western audiences—though rote to those regularly facing political violence and instability.

Some audience members would benefit from a couple of warnings: The Great Leap features a short strobe sequence, a camera flash with audio loud enough to qualify as a jump-scare, and historically-faithful, anti-Asian racism which elicited gasps from the audience. How does the audience handle a considerately, tightly crafted tale of contrasting masculinities, and the emotional realization of mortality on the court, from there? The ball’s in their court.

Portland Center Stage at the Armory, 128 NW 11th, Wed-Sun through Feb 13, various times, $25-$75, tickets and more info here

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courtesy of broke gravy

Consisting of Eric Simons, Leon Anderson, and Chris Williams, the improv trio has been on pause with the rest of the world, though they’re making their triumphant return to the stage at Curious Comedy Theater for a New Year's Eve Eve show on December 30.

They will also be performing with three guest storytellers: Portland State University Professor Nishat Akhtar, mental health therapist Angela Zahas, and adventure enthusiast Denise Peña. You can buy tickets here.

As they describe themselves on their website, Broke Gravy seeks to “use improv comedy, storytelling, and podcasting to discover truth between the blurry lines of the daily grind.”

“As three Black Americans, we utilize our unique voices to spark thoughtful conversations on and off comedy stages,” the description continues. “Through a candid dialogue, we exchange our experiences with those of our audience—exploring deeper perspectives on comedy, relationships, and humanity. Also, we're funny AF.”

I recently got the chance to talk with all three. During our conversation, they shared their endless wit and wisdom, bouncing off each other effortlessly. This also included an appropriate level of roasting of me as I had my Zoom name listed as my nickname, Hutch, which is the shortened version of my last name, Hutchinson.

“I do want to point out that you have an old Black man’s name. Hutch, what?” Chris said with Leon laughing along. “I swear to God, my grandpa’s best friend in Mississippi was named Hutch so I’m not just going to let that slide.”

Beyond this playful ribbing, the three also reflected on how they view their craft, the persistent homogeneity of improv comedy, and how their group came to be.

“The nuts and bolts of the way that we got together was, I had met Chris ten years ago in a workshop and it was the first time that we had gotten to improvise together,” Leon said. “We both did this little scene where we were two Black magicians and we were like ‘This was fucking fun!’ We need to do this again.’”

The duo later became a trio when Eric joined in on the fun.

“Some mutual friends of ours said ‘Hey, Eric is moving to town, you should meet up with him, he's a great guy,’” Leon said. “It was a great conversation.”

The collaboration was a strong one, and allowed for the three to get deeper in their performances.

“Up until that point, I had performed with maybe one other Black individual at the same time,” Leon said. “There are certain nuances of being the only of your kind, being a token on stage, that creates a lot of discomfort. This was my opportunity to perform with people and dive deeper into the Black experience. Get beyond just being Black, but getting into that ‘I’m an engineer with a Jamaican background.’”

That also meant not having to worry about being singled out on stage.

“We can talk about slavery on stage without it being like ‘Oh shit, are they going to make me the slave in this right now?’” Leon said. “Eric and Chris, whether they admit it or not, are amazing performers. It was a no-brainer.”

“I will not return that compliment,” Eric joked. “But, like Leon was saying, you are often that kind of outsider. I mean, improv tends to be pretty straight, white, male.”

Chris puts it in terms that are both humorous and serious.

“It’s the hockey of the entertainment industry,” Chris said. “It’s also not a joke, it’s a real thing. You just have to do extra work, brain power, just to maintain the minimum. When you’re on stage with everyone, your mind is having to work harder just to keep yourself kind of stable in that environment.”

“I avoided doing any kind of virtual improvising during that time. It’s like using a screwdriver as a hammer—it’s not the right tool.”

Eric said the fact they were able to work together so well was creatively freeing, a regrettably uncommon experience.

“When you’re the female on stage, the Black person on stage, the Asian person on stage, the LGBTQIA on stage, even at your most free you still have at least a little bit in the back of your head that’s defense,” Eric said. “[You’re] waiting to have to flip something to not make you the butt of the joke or the outsider. Suddenly, to not have that, was weird. It was great, but it was such a strange feeling.”

That means that there were also moments of good comedy that have been lost.

“These were ways that we should have been able to be creative that if people were on their shit, they’d see how much the groups we were a part of could actually be,” Eric said.

The group working together has paid off in making for good shows that Leon says resonate with audiences.

“The response that we’ve gotten from audiences generally doesn’t have to do with our race in any way. The response is ‘Holy shit, you all are so connected!’” Leon said. “They’re just fully invested. The doper dope response is when we do have a person of color in the audience whose response is ‘I’ve never seen a Black person improvise. I didn’t think this was something Black people did.’”

Leon said that this was not a question of untalented Black improvisers who he said have been “improvising since the beginning of spoken language.” Instead, it is simply a question of access to stages.

As for how Broke Gravy is feeling about getting back on a stage of their own for their first show together in more than a year, they are excited to perform for an audience beyond their own homes.

“I’m chomping at the bit to get back on stage. As much as I love performing for my daughter, she doesn’t get all my jokes,” Eric quipped.

The group does have a podcast, and Leon said they had considered doing more frequent virtual shows at the early stage of the pandemic, though it was far from the same experience as in-person.

“There is something about not having a digital lag. There is something about being able to see each other. Right now, I can see the three of you but I don’t know if you’re looking at me,” Leon said. “I avoided doing any kind of virtual improvising during that time. It’s like using a screwdriver as a hammer—it’s not the right tool.”

That was seconded by Eric and Chris who expressed how there’s just something unique about live improv comedy.

“There is an energy that exists at a live comedy show, but especially a live improv show, that’s really hard to emulate digitally,” Eric said. “There are these little moments where everyone realizes something at the same time in a way that can’t be written or can’t be reproduced. It just happens instantaneously and it’s like a little secret that everyone there gets to be a part of. It just doesn’t work with four squares and a lag.”

“It doesn’t translate, doesn’t translate at all,” Chris said. “This is a totally different game in-person.”

The group is looking forward to making full use of that in-person experience, as well as building off the three storytellers.

“It’s a community-builder, everyone is welcome,” Chris said. “We’re going to be inspired by those stories and then we’re just gonna chop it up on stage after each story is told. I’m the most excited about seeing people in the audience, listening to laughter, and talking to folks in the moment.”

“It’s a party.”

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Beyond theater, The Moth Mainstage is a community where entertainment and enlightenment merge. Each Moth Mainstage features simple, old-fashioned storytelling by wildly divergent raconteurs who develop and shape their stories with The Moth’s directors. Tickets on sale now!

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Dec 14, 7:30 pm, $18-85, all ages, masks and proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required

Aladdin Theater, Dec 7, 8 pm, $37, all ages, proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required

Globally recognized as a vocalist and television star, Sebastian Bach is now celebrating the 30th anniversary of Slave To The Grind, his album with Skid Row. Be there as he plays the record in its entirety — tickets are on sale now!

Aladdin Theater, Dec 3, 8 pm, $37.50, all ages, proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required

GOOD LUCK, and all winners will be notified by this Thursday. And check back in next week for another Mercury FREE TICKET TUESDAY!

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Fans of Monty Python, Mr. Bean, and Dr. Seuss… grab your teacups! Off-Broadway comedians and three-time IMPRESARIO Award-Winners (London) James & Jamesy present their outrageously funny and brilliantly inventive holiday show, O Christmas Tea: A British Comedy. Tickets are on sale now!

Newmark Theatre, November 28, 3 PM & 7:30 PM, $19-44, masks and proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required

Born in the Philippines and raised in London, Bea Kristi began recording music as Beabadoobee in 2017. At just 20 years old, Beabadoobee has built her huge, dedicated Gen-Z fan base with her flawless output of confessional bedroom pop songs and DIY aesthetic. From 2018 to 2019, she released four EPs under the independent label Dirty Hit: Lice, Patched Up, Loveworm and Space Cadet. Her debut studio album, Fake It Flowers, was released in October 2020 to critical acclaim. Tickets are on sale now!

Crystal Ballroom, November 26, 8 pm, $20-35, all ages, proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required

Utilizing hip-hop, jazz, New Orleans R&B, blues, and rock in their gumbo, Lettuce is a New York-based collective who update the sound of classic ’70s funk. Recorded live at the 2016 Catskill Chill in Lakewood, Pennsylvania, the 2017 concert LP Witches Stew celebrated the works of Miles Davis. In 2019, the band released their eclectic sixth studio long-player, Elevate, which featured guest spots from Marcus King and Nigel Hall. The set was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Contemporary Instrumental album. Tickets on sale now!

Roseland Theater, December 4, 9 pm, $26, 21+, proof of vaccination or negative COVID test required

GOOD LUCK, and all winners will be notified by this Thursday. And check back in next week for another Mercury FREE TICKET TUESDAY!

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Cowboy Junkies bring folk, rock and blues to Portland, November 21 at Revolution Hall! Their stage presence is never lacking: rolling drums and warbling guitars create quite the cinematic scene when they take the stage. Don’t miss their exciting live performance—tickets are on sale now!

Revolution Hall, Nov 21, 8 pm, $39.50, 21+, proof of COVID vaccination or negative COVID test required for entry

After two SOLD OUT dates in Portland, Last Podcast on the Left plays a third show, December 5 at Revolution Hall! Laugh along as the hosts cover all the horrors our world has to offer, from cults to killers to cryptids. Tickets are on sale now!

Revolution Hall, Dec 5, 8 pm, $39.50-150, all ages, proof of COVID vaccination or negative COVID test required for entry

The Moth Mainstage returns to Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on December 14! Beyond theater, The Moth Mainstage is a community where entertainment and enlightenment merge. Each Moth Mainstage features simple, old-fashioned storytelling by wildly divergent raconteurs who develop and shape their stories with The Moth’s directors. Tickets on sale now!

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Dec 14, 7:30 pm, $18-85, all ages, proof of vaccination or negative test and masks are required for entry

GOOD LUCK, and all winners will be notified by this Thursday. And check back in next week for another Mercury FREE TICKET TUESDAY!

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Mary Kate Morrissey as Janis with the touring company of Mean Girls: The Musical. Joan Marcus

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

MERCURY: Were you a fan of the movie Mean Girls before joining the musical?

MARY KATE MORRISSEY: Yeah, it came out when I was in late middle school or early high school. I definitely was a fan. My mom read the book Queen Bees and Wannabes that the movie is based on, because I was such a sad kid. A little annoying art kid that was obsessed with the Regina Georges [the ruler of the popular girls] of the world, and obsessed with the way that people were treated by them. At the time it reflected my own life, I thought.

Is it at all triggering now to be an adult playing a teenager and singing the teenage songs, channeling the drama and all those vibes?

No. I did a lot of teaching over the pandemic break. My best friend and I created this studio [the best friend here is fellow Wicked alum Ginna Claire Mason and the company is called Double Name Witches. They both played witches in Wicked and they both have two first names. Get it?]

We had like 100-plus students and created all these curriculums and we have these incredible teens. Our ages 13-17 group are so unbelievably talented but are so like, those art kids. So coming back from the pandemic to the show, it shed a new light on Janis for me. Because I was seeing and hearing so much of what these teenagers are going through in a real way.

Are you still in touch with the kids who were in the program? Are they pen pals and buddies now?

Oh yeah. During the pandemic, when I felt like I was pulling away from my friends, or feeling unconnected to my world of Broadway, these little sub-communities were being formed and built. And these kids are best friends. We’ve had so many kids move in together in the city, or move from California to the city, or move from Singapore to California, just because they have a friend. They have someone there.

That’s so cool that at a time when everyone is so disconnected, they could form real friendships and carry them out of the pandemic.

What we tried to do is create a space where they could come and be themselves, express themselves, and always affirm other people in the class. Musical theater is an inherently collaborative art. Everybody needs to be doing this together.

Ginna Claire and I would leave the Zoom room and these classes would stay on for hours—kids would hang and talk and learn about each other and practice. It turned into a safe space for them. Ginna Claire and I can’t even believe that that’s what we did. We’d get these emails from parents saying like, “last year my daughter was celebrating her birthday just with us. We’d go out to dinner and there were no friends. This year someone threw her a surprise party where 20 of her best friends are singing to her and dressed up to celebrate her and all these different things, and it’s because of Double Name Witches.”

That’s so wonderful.

It’s insane. The mom emails—that’s what really gets me. Like, “You’ve helped my daughter through this, my daughter feels like she can express herself and her point of view, and she has something to say and she’s making friends. It has affected our family culture because she is happy.” It’s the best.

I don’t know if Mary Kate was assigned to this interview because she’s “the weird one” in a “weird” city (embarrassing!) or because she’s no stranger to Potland, having had two extended stints here with different shows. She made very clear that she loved Portland, and looked forward to vintage shopping, eating at Bollywood Theater, and going for a run along the waterfront, which sounded like a perfect Portland day circa 2012; I honestly felt a little insecure on behalf of our city. We’ve changed. What if she doesn’t like us anymore? What if now we aren’t cute-weird (were we ever?) but just messy-weird, or gross-weird?

I am hopeful, though, that if anyone can accept us and this mess we call home, it’d be Mary Kate Morrissey.

Mean Girls: The Musical opens tonight at Keller Auditorium and runs through this weekend; find ticket info here.

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Tracy Kittle (center) during her first year as a haunter at Fearlandia. courtesy of Tracy Kittle

Unlike some fellow actors, Lawrence doesn’t only rely on jump scares, gruesome makeup, or heightened special effects to bring the creep factor. Instead, he’s what haunted house pros call a “talker”—someone who sets the tone as people file into the set. His job is to make sure visitors get an unsettling welcome and to “just be generally off-putting.”

That might mean demanding a stick of gum or a mint from patrons, or asking someone their name and then exclaiming, “You told a stranger in the dark your name? Your real name?”

“I glean a little information, then use it to make people uncomfortable,” Lawrence says in a recent interview with the Mercury. “Before the pandemic, I would break their personal space and stand inches from them, which weirds people out. What I do now is make eye contact—I mean real eye contact… It’s definitely a challenge when a lot of your face is covered [by a COVID-19 mask]. It’s a lot of eye acting, and voice work.”

Lawrence acts each year at Fearlandia, which this year is doing a joint haunt with Underhill Haunted House at Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Bound by pandemic protocol, haunt actors must check vaccine cards, social distance from customers, and wear face masks. But it’s an improvement from last year, when the only haunted houses operating in Portland were drive-throughs—hardly an opportunity for actors to shine.

For Fearlandia actors like Lawrence or Tracy Kittle, the return to form for haunted houses is a welcome chance to have fun and scare people again. But it’s also deeper than that.

James Lawrence showing off his intense eye contact. courtesy of james lawrence

When casting the haunted house, Kittle isn’t necessarily looking for performers with horror acting expertise, though many people drawn to haunted house work do have experience with acting or improv. Instead, the only hard-and-fast requirement is enthusiasm.

“We have an attitude of embracing skills and background of all sorts,” Kittle adds. “If you’re brand new, you’re working next to people who have been doing it a long time. A lot of people who do haunt work year after year have an extra passion about it, and they want to bring people in. It’s interesting to see how much the returning people coach and encourage new actors.”

Most newbies start with the simplest job: operating a push-panel that makes for an easy surprise scare. But eventually, actors will find the role that suits them best. They might be a jump-scarer, a roamer—or, like Lawrence, a talker.

“What I’m doing now is my favorite, just because of the human interaction with it,” he says. “It’s fun improvising, interacting with people and messing with them. It’s a gas.”

Lawrence has been acting in Portland for 40 years, usually in supporting roles. He compares haunted house work to the best ensemble-cast plays he’s done, when “everybody is there for the show.”

“It’s a funny thing—a lot of people love to be terrorized. We’re in a world that’s already pretty terrifying, but this is a fantasia. This has a structure. There’s an end to this terror.”

“The haunt is one of those places where it’s all about the show, the fun, the excitement, the scares,” he adds.

Those fun vibes include behind-the-scenes hijinks. Haunters keep tallies of how many people they surprise so much that they jump, or scare so badly they wet their pants.

“There was one 13-year-old boy who said ‘I just pooped in my pants,’” Lawrence remembers.

Other haunters enjoy bringing their characters outside of the haunted house, and into the real world.

“If I have full makeup on, I love going through a drive-through,” Kittle says. “There’s something about making a drive-through worker’s night. For some people, it’s important to get out of the monster before they go home. Others will totally take public transit home with their full face makeup on.”

But while the team takes pride in scaring people, they also try to walk the line of not causing anyone real trauma. In an environment where people have willingly paid to be terrified, haunt actors have to “be good at reading people,” Kittle says.

“No haunter that I work with wants to be the reason somebody never goes back to a haunted house,” she continues. “So far, everyone I’ve worked with has been great at knowing when to break character and get them out.”

courtesy of Tracy Kittle

“There’s a surprising number of us [haunted house actors] who deal with feeling anxious or depressed,” Kittle says. “It’s interesting to get to be the thing behind the curtain scaring people. You’re the one in control in that situation. You know the halls aren’t scary, you know the people in every next room, and you’re the one who has the edge on a person. It’s empowering.”

That dynamic might explain why Lawrence loves working at haunted houses, but hates going to them as a customer. “They scare the crap out of me,” he confides. But he can understand the appeal for visitors.

“It’s a funny thing—a lot of people love to be terrorized,” he says. “We’re in a world that’s already pretty terrifying, but this is a fantasia. This has a structure. There’s an end to this terror.”

But there’s at least one real-world horror seeping into the fantasy realm of haunted houses this year. The pandemic has presented some challenges for haunters (no crazy fake teeth), but also some opportunities (masks make great blank canvases for air-brushed effects).

“It does take away from things a little,” Lawrence says about the COVID protocol. “But judging from the shrieking and screaming I’ve heard, not too much.”

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Andrew Jankowski

Good improv relies on actors’ wits and chemistry, and Murder Mystery Machine’s cast play well off each other. They never take themselves or the setting too seriously, but each actor did bring their own fresh twist to classic characters, and enough focus to make it clear they weren’t just winging it. In the performance I attended, Funhouse owner Andy Barrett played Shaggy, while Landy Lamb was Velma, Lauren Allison portrayed Daphne, Josh Payne took on the character of Fred, and Bobbi Kaye Kupfner inhabited the spirit of Scooby-Doo.

Murder Mystery Machine actors swap roles each night, and most play more than one character, shifting wigs to keep the audience guessing who the killer could be. While aspects of the plot are predetermined, this is still improv, and multiple viewings are required to see all of Murder Mystery Machine’s possible outcomes. With a different aftershow each night (dominatrix-led improv followed the performance I attended), it could be worth coming back to find out.

After unmasking an audience volunteer as the villain of their last solved case, Mystery Inc. headed to a dilapidated mall, prompted by a call from the audience for places people used to enjoy visiting. Fred is then summoned by his pervy Uncle Eugene (Barrett), who needs “young, but legal, college teens” to help him revive a business that failed under suspicious circumstances.

Absurd wordplay factors heavily in Murder Mystery Machine’s humor. Most of the stores in Uncle Eugene’s mall are just words with double meanings, or two words that rhyme, regardless of whether or not they should be businesses at all. “Food Court” is a Sbarro and Subway littered with legal documents, while “Meat and Feet” gives customers unspecific cold cuts with their pedicures. The mall’s too-generic local teens, however, seemed like a missed opportunity to play with Saw’s famously 2D archetypes, or shuttle in sacrificial kids from horror film locales such as Haddonfield or Camp Crystal Lake.

Standouts from the production include Lamb, who hilariously hits Velma’s requisite “Jinkies!” and glasses gags, Barrett’s Shaggy voice (which gives Matthew Lillard a run for his live-action legacy), and Allison’s smoldering chemistry with Lamb’s silver-tongued dirtbag brothers. Oh, and there’s also a groovy chase scene, along with a demented Jigsaw deathtrap that could be in the next gritty reboot sequel.

Murder Mystery Machine may be simple, but it’s definitely entertaining, and there’s nothing to overthink. Improv encourages everyone involved to let go and live in the moment. Even with familiar characters and settings, the audience gives up the comfort of what they know. The actors, holding up multi-generational pop characters, listen to each other, not just for their cues. It’s raunchy humor, but nobody punches down.

Water splatters along the walls and out at the audience during the blackouts, signifying death while also loosening up the audience for the laughs that lie ahead. One member of the gang is doomed, and Murder Mystery Machine’s crew elicits dread for them. No spoilers, but for better or worse, Scrappy-Doo didn’t show up on Saturday. Then again, who’s to say he doesn’t show up at the next show?

Murder Mystery Machine runs at the Funhouse Lounge at 7 pm Thursday-Saturday through November 6. Tickets start at $13.

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Comedian Jacqueline Novak performing her one-woman show, Get On Your Knees. Courtesy of Jacqueline Novak

It’s not really about blowjobs—or at least, not exclusively. Rather, GOYK, which you can see this Sunday evening at Revolution Hall, uses the blow job as “this recurring thing I revisit to talk about a lot of other things,” Novak says in a recent interview with the Mercury, which is peppered with the mile-a-minute commentary and generous, honest humor fans of Novak would recognize.

Those other things can include “discomfort about the body and being in a physical form, and dignity, and poetry and language, and the limitations of that… But when I start screaming about the limitations of language, it’s like, Jesus, woman. You know what I mean?”

So she keeps it simple, with that quick tagline. “It has a very carnival-barker vibe that I enjoy, because marketing is so awkward, so might as well lean in and be a marketer in the most old-school way,” Novak says. “We say that to tease that yes, it’s about blowjobs, but it’s not approaching that in a way to be shocking.”

Novak first opened GOYK in 2019 in New York City, to rave reviews from the likes of the New York Times and The New Yorker. She was set to start touring in March 2020, and was delayed for obvious reasons. Now, she’s been on the road for a month, but says keeping the show fresh has come easily.

“My emotions and thoughts around it are changing all the time, because I’m always looking for ways it can be improved. My inherent self-dissatisfaction keeps it fresh for me,” she says. "It’s like it’s never done…. Plus, every time I go in front of an audience, it is inherently scary.”

“I’m certainly feeling a giddiness, or a thrill, so hopefully that has a contagion,” she adds. “Oh—wrong word, wrong word. Or maybe it’s funny, I don’t know. Probably not.”

When planning her Pacific Northwest tour leg (she hits Seattle first on Saturday), Novak had grand plans of turning the trip into a vacation. “I was wildly looking this week at these lodges—these Pacific Northwest getaways. ‘I’m gonna go a week early, I’m gonna go to this lodge, ride a horse.’ I had ten of these woodsy spa resorts, and then I didn’t get my shit together, so that’s not happening.”

Still, at every tour date, Novak looks forward to the moment after the show, when she can return to her hotel room and eat nachos.

“It’s the best experience of food in the world, doing a post-show meal. It’s just the utter sensation of relaxing,” she says. “God’s greatest gift: room service. The one true glory of God is room service, and everything about it.”

You can see Jacqueline Novak’s one-woman show, Get on Your Knees, at 8 pm Sunday, October 10 at Revolution Hall. Tickets are $35. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test is required for entry.

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Performers rehearsing for The Siren's Nightmare on Elm Street: The Play!. Courtesy of Shelley McLendon

McLendon opened the Siren Theater back in 2015, and in a 2018 Mercury profile was hailed as “a driving force in Portland’s comedy scene.” The theater had previously done a run of this Elm Street show, though that was in the before-times (2019) when no one foresaw the pandemic that was about to hit us. How young we were. Freddy himself even seems like not so scary of a guy in comparison.

Now, approaching the theater’s sixth anniversary and new in-person run of shows, McLendon is sharing what to expect of the show’s triumphant return, how the process of creating comedy from horror works, and what her favorite Elm Street movie is. Sadly, it wasn’t Dream Warriors.

[Editor's Note: The Mercury's own Wm. Steven Humphrey has a role in A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Play! Humphrey wasn't involved in the commissioning or editing of this piece.]

MERCURY: How does it feel to be bringing back the show?

McLendon: It feels great because we were, you know, hoping to do it last October but we could not. So it feels wonderful.

What kind of preparation have you been putting into capturing and having fun with this iconic horror story?

We have built a name for ourselves for doing staged parodies of cult, 80s movies. We’ve done Road House, Poltergeist, and The Lost Boys. We did Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer which was the 60s Rankin/Bass one that comes out at Christmas every year.

The original movie [A Nightmare on Elm Street] just speaks for itself. It’s intentionally funny in a way that was not clear when the movie first came out. It’s still very scary, but there are also lots of funny things about it. I just tried to underscore what is naturally funny about it.

Often horror and comedy can go hand-in-hand as both are built around a question being asked of the audience with a surprise answer. That surprise can either be a joke or something more scary. What do you see as the relationship between comedy and horror?

What makes comedies really funny to me is when people are just being themselves, going about their day and something unexpected happens. That’s also what a good horror movie is: just normal people going about their day and something terrifying happens. Just people’s natural reactions are both funny and terrifying. [Laughs]. Like you said, the outcome can either be terrifying or totally funny. To me, it’s really easy to find that relationship when people are reacting to something naturally that is unexpected. That to me is always entertaining.

There is a lot of real-life stuff to be scared of these days, whereas a show like this seems like a way you can experience something scary and silly in a safe way. What role do you see the show and theater like this having in our present moment?

We reopened in June and have been doing shows just about every weekend since then. One of the things that I keep hearing from people, in email or when they stop me in-person, they’ll say ‘Thank you so much for doing this again. For having live comedy again.’ I agree with you, there is lots to be scared of right now and I don’t want to give people more to be afraid of. I want to give them more to laugh at.

Shifting to a more silly question, what is your favorite Nightmare on Elm Street film and why is it Dream Warriors?

[Laughs.] Thank you for asking that question, not a lot of people are brave enough to ask that and I appreciate it.

Oh yes, I have to ask the hard-hitting questions.

[Laughs] I have seen Dream Warriors and I don’t remember much about it. But I’ve had people ask ‘Are you going to do Dream Warriors?’ so I should probably watch it again. My favorite one is the original because I remember watching it when I was a kid and being completely terrified by it. But if you really look at it, it’s really not that scary. The special effects aren’t that great and the acting isn’t very good.

Making for a ripe opportunity for parody.

Yes!

Speaking of those effects, there is an iconic moment in the first film that makes use of a dummy. Will that factor into the show?

I’m actually today going to go pick up a mannequin that I have purchased that does play in. It’s so obvious and one of the things that we’ve done with the script is we’ve added a narrator. The narrator comments on everything that everyone’s thinking. We do mention the mannequin.

In regards to the status of theater, I know you are taking precautions including reduced capacity. Do you think things are in a more stable place right now?

That’s a great question. Last month, we reopened the run of Road House. When we started rehearsals in July, it was scary. We were like ‘Do we still want to do this?’ Everybody still wanted to do it. We all got vaccinated, we all wore masks. We have air purifiers throughout the Siren and require vaccination cards from everyone in the audience. While I hope to not have to do that forever, it’s so far been okay. After the run of Road House, which was four weeks, I was like ‘Wow, this seems like we can do this.’ If everyone continues to wear masks and continues to take proper care and are safe, it seems like we can do this if this is how it is going to be for a while. It does take everybody to participate. Knock on wood, so far so good.

What can people do to show their support to The Siren and other arts organizations as a whole?

Come to shows. Obviously, people are going to do what makes them feel safe and I totally understand that. But if you feel okay with sitting inside with everybody else who is vaccinated and wearing masks, come on out to a show.

What does the future hold for other shows? Any other iconic horror films you’re hoping to tackle?

During lockdown when we couldn’t do a live show we made our own version of the Blair Witch Project, which is one that I’ve been wanting to put on stage for a long while. It is legitimately scary, though there are also some funny things about that movie. So we made our own Blair Witch parody that I will make available on our website for people to enjoy for free. It was super fun. We filmed it on my phone, so let’s not expect a cinematic masterpiece but I think it works [Laughs]. As far as future horror movies, The Craft was suggested to me which I have not seen. I’ve just had many people say, ‘You’ve got to watch it because it’s the thing where it’s hilarious yet not always meaning to be.’

Is there anything else you can tell us about coming to pay a visit to Elm Street with you all?

The show is legitimately scary. We try to put some scares that will really make you jump a little bit. People look for something to do around the Halloween season where you don’t have to wear a costume if they don’t want to, and this is it.

Because everyone on stage will be the ones wearing the costumes.

Exactly.