Recent Stories with tag comedy

From left, Dr. Horrible (Eric Ankrim), Captain Hammer (Jake Groshong), and Penny (Annie Jantzer) in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog at Balagan Theatre (Photo: M. Elizabeth Eller)

There's a lot of backstory to Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, but I am going to dispense with it on the assumption that if you haven't heard about it by now, it can't possibly be your thing. (That doesn't mean you won't enjoy seeing the show--just go in blindly and let it wash over you.)

A "musical tragicomedy" web series created by the Whedon boys and Maurissa Tancharoen during the writers' strike of 2007-08, it starred Neil "How I Met Your Mother" Patrick Harris and Nathan "Castle" Fillion, as Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer, respectively. (Oh look! A fansite.)

It also clocked in at just 42 minutes, so the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog that Balagan Theatre is presenting (through September 4) has material that will be new to Dr. Horrible fans, but is delightfully faithful in tone and spirit. My only reservation was that Balagan isn't by trade a musical theatre, so could they come up with the goods? Hell yes. It's wonderfully sung, and leads Eric Ankrim (Dr. Horrible) and Jake Groshong (Captain Hammer) do much more than sub in for NPH and NF.... (more)

Molly Rivers (Renata Friedman) meets her idol Margot Mason (Suzy Hunt) in ACT's "Female of the Species." (Photo: Chris Bennion)

With Female of the Species (at ACT Theatre through July 18), Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith is more interested in making you laugh than in feminist critiques, although laughing at the self-importance in feminist critiques is more than welcome.

It's a drawing-room farce that just happens to have a feminist icon in its particular drawing room (a creation of set designer Robert Dahlstrom). ACT's uniformly strong cast is rotated in throughout the course of the 100-minute play, so there's never a dull moment, or even room for an intermission. The play just caroms along, merrily knifing sacred cows. It's long on gleeful satire...and less well-supported by character and plot development.

The set-up, briefly, is that feminist monstre sacré Margot Mason (the gimlet-eyed Suzy Hunt) is grinding out another zeitgeist-hash-settling book, or should be, when her writing and writer's block are interrupted by an unexpected, uninvited visitor, former student Molly Rivers (Renata Friedman, doing a farce-version of Thewlis in Naked). Molly is a particularly demanding fan, it turns out, but she's not the only one with a manifesto. Mason's daughter, her daughter's husband, her daughter's taxi driver, and her editor will all have their say as well.

While the play has some trenchant things to say about being a woman today, there's no Women's Studies pre-req, or at least no one asked at the door. It's not, for instance, necessary to know that it was inspired by Germaine Greer being held hostage for two hours by a teenage stalker, before dinner guests arrived. (Or that Greer, born in Australia, once described her native land as an ocean of suburban mediocrity.) If the book title Cerebral Vagina makes you laugh, this is the play for you.

And in that case, go buy a ticket and stop reading because here there be spoilers.

Female of the Species should have an intermission, but doesn't, because there's nowhere to put it. The play doesn't reach a climax so much as get distracted. Margot Mason's enlightenment--that she can take the weight of the women of the world off her shoulders--arrives on cue in the closing minutes but is hardly believable. It's sort of a well-meant gesture, rather than any light catharsis.... (more)

Montana von Fliss and beakers

"Warning: May not contain actual musical," says the program for Cancer: The Musical, playing at Washington Ensemble Theatre through June 21 (Thurs-Mon). The emotionally unstable--for good reason, her dad died of cancer!--solo show does have a musical element, but the caveat show-goer principle still applies.

You can't possibly be prepared for the range of what you get. Grief and death do not package easily, which is the joke in the title.

Montana von Fliss is the star, appearing before you in a white lab coat and announcing that she's a "scientician" of Loss, which she pronounces with a capital L. If this were a musical, this would be the analytic comedy number. Using an overhead projector gets laughs. So does describing her father's bouts with bipolar disorder, his drug use, his homelessness.

Von Fliss has a sort of pickled-bone rubberiness that's funny because unexpected from this cute blonde who--with her hair bunned up, with glasses--looks an endearingly martial pipsqueak. She's even got a little pocket monogram that says "Montana."

But seriousness sneaks in, and soon enough she's recounting her experiences taking care of her father as he died of cancer. There's no great revelation here, just the strain, awkwardness, and pain of watching someone very dear lose their grip on life. If you're at all prone to crying, bring tissues as a courtesy to those sitting around you. Not so much for the crying alone, as for the inevitable sputtering laugh that may...spray.... (more)

Can you believe it? Here we are at the last show before the finale of this season of Top Chef Masters. As a reminder, the final four contestants are Susur Lee, Rick Moonen, Marcus Samuelsson, and Jonathan Waxman. Now that Susan Feniger's gone, the show's a sausage fest, or as Jonathan says, "Four dudes left. It's kind of impressive and a little scary at the same time." With all that masculinity and testosterone in the kitchen, it won't be long before bros are straight-up icing bros. 

But before that inevitability, it's time for the final Quickfire challenge of the season.

All four chefs have cookbooks and they're displayed on a table. Rick's is the only book without his mug on the cover, just a big ol' slab of salmon.  Kelly tells the chefs to pair up on their own, and we end up with these duos: Jonathan and Marcus, Rick and Susur. They think they're meant to cook together but psyche! Instead they're doing a cookbook swap; each chef in the duo is cooking a recipe from the other's cookbook. Unfortunately for us as viewers, they don't even get to pick what to cook--the recipes have already been chosen for them, with the ingredients provided in a box. Because these recipes are more complex, they get a full ninety minutes of cooking time.

Rick is nervous about recreating one of Susur's complex dishes; Marcus wants to add his own multi-culti dimension to Jonathan's dish; Jonathan doesn't want to do a curry as spicy as Marcus would; Susur is complaining because the recipe he got doesn't have any photographs and he "cooks with his eyes." That's so Susar. He says, "I don't read English very well. So I didn't look at the method, how he made. I look at ingredients. And that makes sense to me."  Oh Susur, for a very talented chef, every challenge has an extra difficulty just for you.... (more)

Nicholas Terry made a quality feature film for peanuts (between $100 and $300, depending on who you talk to). It's screening at the most-attended film festival in the country. Without trying, he's getting the kind of regional media attention that most aspiring filmmakers would kill for. And he's navigating the avalanche of press interviews like a pro. In a lot of ways, it's a typical story of a first-time director getting his vision seen by a large and appreciative audience, except for the fact that the director in question hasn't yet graduated high school.

With his slender frame, slightly mussed head of red hair, and polite smile, Terry's combination of awkwardness and precocious smarts suggests Neil Patrick Harris by way of Topher Grace, but he possesses a clarity of focus that'd be impressive in anyone--never mind a seventeen-year-old. That singularity of purpose makes sense in the context of the movie he's made.

Senior Prom received its world premiere to a packed house at the Seattle International Film Festival's SIFF Cinema last Friday (it also plays at 4:30 p.m. today at the same venue). It's one of the buzz movies of the festival, largely because of its solidly homegrown pedigree. Terry, a Mountlake Terrace High School senior, devised and directed the movie as a senior class project. He cast several of his school drama pals in the leads, and encouraged them to freely improvise on his basic outline of a story about high-school seniors preparing for that most momentous of hurrahs: senior prom.

Rough around the edges as it is, the movie's incredibly entertaining, more Waiting for Guffman than Sixteen Candles. Its characters alternately conform to and transcend expected high-school tropes: There's Miles (Michael Ward), the not-as-cocky-as-he-acts sorta-jock with an unrequited crush on all-business ASB president Brittany (Jessica Weight); exuberant nerd Zach (Max Watson), who pines for razor-tongued wiseacre Lynsey (Lynsey Lorraine); and the annoyingly lovey-dovey steady couple Shelley and Shawn (Alix Deenan and Alan Garcia), among others. Senior Prom manages to be funny as hell, while still acknowledging the little pains and dramas at the root of being a teenager, and it pulls that balance off with a first-hand immediacy that could only come from someone living on those front lines.... (more)

Brenda Joyner and Amy Thone in NCTC's "On the Nature of Dust." Photo: Chris Bennion

Though it's a comedy about the mother-daughter bond--albeit one that also provokes audible sniffling--On the Nature of Dust (through May 30 at ACT's Falls Theatre, tickets $10-$25) will never be confused with the chick-lit fare that features earnest joy luck clubs or no-shit-taking ya-ya sisterhoods. It's most hilarious moments have the feel of hidden family-photo-album candids. Still, it celebrates a central mystery (acknowledging, then breaking that bond) in a way that many--if not most--men may only guess at the depth of.

From the moment that the lights come up on Amy Thone, sprawled out at the breakfast table in a too-short denim skirt, the play is owned by her character, Shirley Bliss, a hard-living, man-chasing, unfit excuse for a mom. Sure, we can laugh about it in retrospect, but she's the kind of woman you give a wide berth to in the supermarket. She is the challenge playwright Stephanie Timm has set herself. You've heard of an antihero. Meet the anti-mom.

If Shirley gets a hard-won education in motherhood, just as her baby Clara (Brenda Joyner) is about to leave the nest, Thone, Timm, and director Kathleen Collins are careful not to sand her rough edges smooth. Her language and parenting advice--while uproarious--are recommended for those 16 and above. (Her explanation for why she smells the way she does exiting the bedroom may not have an upper or lower bound.) 

Etta Lilienthal's scenic design for Shirley's apartment smacks you upside the head with the social stratum suggested by a plush burgundy couch, a plastic wood-grain breakfast table, and floral-patterned vinyl chairs (the ones with the metal frame and trapezoidal backs), all on a carpet of AstroTurf. (The impossible-but-true AstroTurf really sends me.)

Brenda Joyner and Benjamin Harris in NCTC's "On the Nature of Dust." Photo: Chris Bennion

Borrowing from what is now absurdist tradition (and a penchant of her own), Timm has over-achieving, compulsively organized Clara turn into a chimpanzee following a church-utility-closet groping spree with Bernie Wells (Benjamin Harris).

Oddly, the chimpanzee scenes are not all that funny--at least in comparison to the rest of the show.

Once Clara starts devolving, the play is all Thone's--and Harris's. Harris is that lanky, gawky, blurting and grunting ur-teenager that typifies the actual variety (or used to, prior to Michael Cera). Harris is never smarter than his character, never peeks out behind Bernie's goofball incomprehension. Shirley, adrift without her daughter's mothering, at first tries to find a way to restore Clara, and gradually settles on trying to create the environment she needs.... (more)

I was on board with pop-comedy-theater collective/band "Awesome" from pretty much the beginning. They are seven of the smartest, funniest, most all-around talented artists in town, hands down. They're also a group of genuinely good guys, except for Rob Witmer--HE KNOWS WHAT HE DID. No seriously, I love 'em to pieces, so of course, I've been excited for their latest long-form show West, directed by Matt Richter. Jeremy already mentioned that West kicks off its On the Boards run tonight (through Sunday, tix $18), but I talked to trumpeter Evan Mosher to get the full deets. We also discussed a group of local teenagers with a major crush on the band (see video above), as well as the most important thing EVAR: the final season of Lost. (PS: Give them some money.)

Your new performance piece, West, is "inspired by the journey of Lewis and Clark and the myths of westward expansion." But you're certainly not the first artists to tackle the American frontier. Why do think the region (or the idea of the region) is so artistically fruitful?

First, the impulse came from wanting to do something that was rooted in an actual physical place where we live and make our art. Our previous shows have come from more existential/absurdist ground, and we wanted to push into a new area. (We ended up with another existential romp, more on that later.) But really, each of us in the band has a pretty intensely romantic personal relationship with the (north)west. Most of us traveled a few thousand miles to settle here, and who doesn't love a good road-trip story? Lewis and Clark's journals are often referred to as our first national on-the-road epic. Again, we deviated from that story almost immediately, but it's still there in the show's DNA.

This is your second piece to be performed at On the Boards. How does the experience/process with West compare to that of noSIGNAL?

I think the main difference is that we worked with a director (Matthew Richter) from almost the very beginning of the process, whereas with noSIGNAL, we brought John Kaufmann in very late, after most of the writing was already done. For WEST we also brought in top-notch designers early on (shout-out to L.B. Morse, Jen Zeyl, Harmony Arnold, and Zac Culler). And with Matt steering that conversation with the designers, and communicating all the evolving concepts between us and the designers, we were able to create something on a much grander scale than all our previous shows.  This is by far our most ambitious project.... (more)

Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter at McCaw Hall

There were a couple things I knew going in to the Conan O'Brien show Sunday night. It was at McCaw Hall, Conan would be there, and...that's about it. (Sunday also just happened to be Conan's birthday!) Not a lot was said about the show, and no one knew who the guests would be. Would he set it up like a talk show? Would he ride a unicycle for 90 minutes?

It turned out to be an interesting mix, more like a variety act than a comedy tour. There's been some positive and negative talk about the tour, but if you're a huge fan of his talk show, then you probably would have had a fantastic time. The show's opening act, Reggie Watts (formerly of Seattle and currently of Maktub), did a great job of working up the crowd and getting them ready for 90 minutes of hot Coco action. He brought on a lot of laughs with his great mix of electronic music, dirty jokes, and wacky lyrics. The Seattle-specific call-outs really perked up the audience as well as his dazzling voice. 

And then on came Conan with a bang, kicking off with a two-minute standing ovation by the awaiting audience. He started with a pretty typical introduction, talking about the tour and its purpose, with quite a bit of the complaints that we've gotten used to hearing from the ex-NBC host over the last three months. The Seattle crowd ate it up, and it must have felt good to have that many people behind him. Guests that joined the comedian onstage included his sidekick Andy Richter, one of his writers, Deon Cole, who did a short stand-up routine, La Bamba and his "Big Band," and that night's special music guest Dave Matthews.... (more)

If you were thinking about heading to the Gorge for this year's Sasquatch Festival, you're too late. As of this morning, the fest is all sold out (both tix and three-day passes), and in record time no less.  That marks the greatest number of tickets sold in the fastest time since Sasquatch was born, way back in 2002. I would give credit where credit's due: this year's slam-bang lineup.

Over the past few weeks, a few more acts have been added to the schedule, including They Might Be Giants, The Posies, and RAAAAAAAANDY! (Aziz Ansari, that is.) To see what you're missing, check out the full lineup after the jump.

2010 SASQUATCH! FESTIVAL LINEUP (New additions in bold)

Saturday, May 29

My Morning Jacket

Vampire Weekend

The National

Broken Social Scene

Deadmau5

OK Go

Wale

Minus the Bear

Brother Ali

Shabazz Palaces

Public Enemy

The Hold Steady

Miike Snow

The Posies

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

Portugal. The Man

Mumford & Sons

Why?

The Lonely Forest

Patrick Watson

The Middle East

Nurses

Fool’s Gold

Morning Teleportation

Aziz Ansari

Garfunkel & Oates

Nick Kroll

Moshe Kasher

Z-Trip

Dam-Funk

The Very Best... (more)

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a "first novel" of a play. It sets out some of the themes that Shakespeare would deal with throughout his career (the life-changing comings and goings of love; and women, in disguise, seeing men as they are), along with a young playwright's difficulty getting his characters from plot point A to plot point B. For Shakespeare fans, it's like an early B-side from that band you love.

Seattle Shakespeare's production of Two Gentlemen (through April 11; tickets here) plays like a cover of that B-side by a hipper band. Director Marcus Goodwin has set the play on a Gold Coast that borrows from the glitz-and-surf of Los Angeles and Miami, and infuses the Shakespeare with knowing takes on today's endlessly mediated realities. It's sly fun, and the actors are game, but the play does wander a bit, before careening to its contrived end.

A projection screen at the back of the stage gets good use in club scenes, and with its wipes and fades and mosaics does a better job infecting the goings-on with a modern feel than even the cargo shorts and cell phones. Robertson Witmer's sound design ingeniously transfers the pop songs on iPods and earbuds or cans out to the audience in real-time. And the sushi restaurant date night gets embarrassed giggles of self-recognition.

Valentine (Connor Toms) and his best bro, Proteus (Daniel Brockley), have just the right look for this One Tree Hill adventure in Shakespeare: Toms is dark-haired and intense, Brockley, rangy and opportunistic. Valentine heads off to "college" (the Duke's court), but Proteus stays behind to win the heart of Julia (Hana Lass, doing a formidably haughty schoolgirl number)--until his father sends him off to get an education, too.... (more)

Looks like Conan O'Brien has found something to do with his free time, as today he announced a thirty-city live performance tour.  Dubbed "The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour," his live show promises "a night of music, comedy, hugging, and the occasional awkward silence."  That sounds like the Conan we all know and love.

Kicking off in Eugene, Oregon on April 12th, the tour will take place over two months, making stops in twenty states and three Canadian provinces, as well as a special appearance at Bonnaroo.  Locally, Conan will perform at McCaw Hall on April 18th and April 19th--looks like this second show was just added!  Prices start at $39.50 (but this is Ticketmaster, so let's just say $50) all the way up to $695 for the drool-worthy special VIP meet-and-greet package. 

Full list of tour dates as of right now--ticket sales are strong, so second shows keep getting added--after the jump.... (more)

Billy Connolly has been making people laugh since the 1970s with his hilarious, off-the-cuff stand-up performance.

On television Connolly starred in the final season of the popular sitcom Head of the Class. He has also starred in a wide range of films including Indecent Proposal, Muppet Treasure Island, The Boondock Saints (I and II), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and the upcoming Gulliver's Travels.

Billy Connolly performs March 12 and 13 at 8 p.m. at the Bagley Wright Theatre.

Been to Seattle before?

Never once. I've always wanted to, but all the tours I've been on just never went there. You know people say it rains there all the time but I don't give a shit, I'm Scottish, I'm waterproof.

Any naked dancing planned for your visit?

No, I usually only do that on those documentary travel films I do. I got into the habit of doing it because I did it once and then I was thinking, oh, what do I do to top that for my next film, and I thought, ah fuck it, I'll just do another naked dance. Actually the last one I did in New Zealand and I did a naked bungee.

I hope nothing was harmed by whatever harness you were wearing.

No, it's a boot thing. It's a boot harness that's calf-length. And the rest of me was pink and fluffy.

You've had a long career in which you've sung folk music, written books, acted in numerous movies and television shows, and of course, stand-up comedy. Do you have a favorite? What makes you happiest?

Comedy is my calling. The rest of it is incidental. I like acting and I like acting well, and music is something, well, some people are musicians and some aren't and I'm an aren't. But comedy--it's at once exhilarating and frightening. And when I'm on the stage doing it, I'm very very happy. 

You're going to be doing two shows in Seattle, and you've done a lot of marathon, multi-date runs of shows in your career. How do you keep it fresh and exciting doing so many shows in a row?

It's kind of a weird thing. It takes work. I do about two, two and a half hours usually and it's kept fresh by trying to remember it most of the time. Half the time I can't remember everything so I have to make up stuff. I don't write it down, you see. I've never written it in my life. I was tempted to try writing it down afterward when things went really well, but I never got around to doing that.

There was an ad-lib I did once that lasted a very long time. It was a whole sketch, just ad-libbed. It's on YouTube, you can look up "Billy Connolly Wildebeast." And that's its only performance. I've thought since, maybe I should do that wildebeast thing, but what did I say about them wildebeasts, ah fuck it, I don't remember.

You've played many different roles on film, but most people know you as a comedian. How fun was it to play Il Duce, a complete badass, in The Boondock Saints?

Oh, I loved that. It's brilliant. Being a badass is wonderful because badasses do interesting things. Nice guys are just nice. They go to work and feed their family, but a badass can kill people they don't like with a nine millimeter. It just gives life that little slant. That happy little slant of your fantasies. It's a wonderful world to live in for ninety minutes.... (more)

In case you missed it--because I know I did--the Sasquatch website was updated yesterday afternoon to include the breakdown of bands playing the fest by day. 

Now's where the difficult decisions come into play.  If you're just going to the Gorge for one day, do you pick Saturday for Broken Social Scene, Vampire Weekend, and My Morning Jacket (and hope for rain so that MMJ puts on a drenched three-hour set like they did at last year's Bonnaroo)?  Do you head out Sunday for LCD Soundsystem, Pavement, and Massive Attack?  Do you wait till Monday for the New Pornographers, MGMT, and Ween?  Or do you suck it up and prepare yourself for all three days and some truly hellish camping?  Decisions, decisions. 

Full lineup by day after the jump.... (more)

At the Crocodile last night, after the party rap of Fresh Espresso (which should really be called "Fresh Latte" as there's more milk than coffee in that band), after the lo-fi pedal-heavy, layered solo acoustic guitar "folk jams" of Atlas Sound, and before the always solid (even with ragged tour-beleaguered vocals) West Coast-leaning pop of Surfer Blood came the official announcement of a big chunk of bands performing at this year's Sasquatch Festival.  And it is approximately insane.

Before last night, they had only announced the presence of a reunited Pavement, and that alone was enough to guarantee a visit to the Gorge come Memorial Day.  But the rest of the lineup?  My Morning Jacket, Massive Attack, LCD Soundsystem, Broken Social Scene, Ween, Vampire Weekend, MGMT, Band of Horses, The National, The New Pornographers, Passion Pit--most of which is SQUEEEEE-worthy. Public Enemy, just for whaaaaaaaa's sake.  The Hold Steady, because nobody's perfect.  The xx, which sounds good in theory, but I'd guess that they will not translate well in the festival setting.  Miike Snow, which explains their cancelled April Showbox date. Shabazz Palaces, since they put on what most of the music cognoscenti is already calling this year's best local show. There's not too much so far announced by way of comedy, so expect more of that to solidify closer to May.  Still, it's a helluva start.

Once again, tickets go on sale at Ticketmaster and the (finally updated) festival website this Saturday at 10 a.m. PST.  Single tickets will be $70 per day through May 23rd, when the price goes up to $80, and day-of-show tix will be $86.  A discounted three-day-pass will be available this weekend only for $170.

Full lineup (to date) after the jump.... (more)

Kathy Griffin has two shows coming up in Seattle later this month, January 29th and 30th at the Paramount. For a sneak peek of what to expect, check out her latest DVD, She'll Cut a Bitch, available as of Tuesday. 

In the hour-plus of comedy (taped at a show last year at Portland's Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall), Kathy dishes on celebs from Alec Baldwin to Miley Cyrus. The SunBreak has two copies of the DVD to give away.  Enter below for your chance to win.  We'll be drawing two winners' names Friday at noon.... (more)

Kathy Griffin's a busy lady.  Along with dropping f-bombs on CNN, she's always working on her reality show My Life on the D-List and constantly performing live at clubs across the country.  In fact, she's got two shows coming up in Seattle later this month: January 29th and 30th at the Paramount. 

Now on top of all that, her latest DVD, She'll Cut a Bitch, came out yesterday.  In the hour-plus of comedy, Kathy dishes on celebs, as per usual.  TV Squad put it best: "But the focus is always celebrities, and no one drops a name like Griffin. She tells the story of sharing her birthday cake with Cher (who is apparently a D-List fan), meeting James Gandolfini, trying to resist laughing at Tracy Morgan making fun of Oprah Winfrey while Winfrey is within earshot, and questioning the Jonas Brothers' appeal."

The SunBreak has two copies of the DVD to give away.  Enter below for your chance to win.  We'll be drawing two winners' names Friday at noon.

On the series premiere last Friday of John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show, Maria Bamford and Greg Fitzsimmons and Nick Kroll (as Fabrice Fabrice) told all their jokes.  John Oliver got to do an intro bit as well.  But Eugene Mirman was the headliner, and his set featured the following vignette about doing book readings in Seattle.  He may think that he ran into a couple odd characters when he was in town, but I'd say these people sound pretty typical for Seattle.

This week's episode features erstwhile Seattle comic Hari Kondabolu (along with Mary Lynn Rajskub, Matt Braunger, and Brian Posehn).  John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show runs Friday nights 11 p.m.-12 a.m. on Comedy Central.

Annex Theatre has put together a holiday-skewering, comedy triple header (called Annex Triple Header) that is emphatically not for everyone. From now until December 19, Friday and Saturday nights at the Annex bring you a blasphemous puppet show, a comedy competition, and a nunsploitation episode (tickets: $10-$12 each, or $25 for a triple header pass good for multiple nights).

There's a distinct Gong Show vibe to the whole evening, except without the gong. If you know and love the Annex, you will laugh heartily and get raging drunk afterward in their bar as a means of support. If you haven't been, this is an evening of fringe (in so many senses of the word) comedy, so be prepared. In many--if not most--ways it is highly inappropriate for children and pedophiles, because you wouldn't want both in the same room.

[Pause for laughter]

[Wait for it...wait for it]

It Came From Under the Tree begins with three drunken, slutty, under-rehearsed elves with surprisingly good singing voices (Operadisiac, says the program, solving that mystery). They provide burlesque interludes between low-budget puppetry of the Nativity, Black Peter, a Michael Jackson/Grinch mashup, drunken uncles, and of course A Christmas Carol.

Highlights include a casting coup for Herod's baby executioner, a ghost with a foot-odor fetish, and improvisational work with a tree ornament. Inexplicably, Harry S Truman appeared as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Brian Kooser's puppets are magic, even if the jokes are hit-and-miss.... (more)

You loved him years ago on Almost Live!, you love him every week as the snarky host of The Soup, and now you can love him on his new TV show (not to mention his part in The Informant!, the latest Soderbergh film). Please to enjoy the pilot episode of Community, starring Joel McHale (as himself).

Despite the talk of a monsoon this weekend, I ain't care. If fewer people venture to Bumbershoot this year, that is fine by me. It just makes for more music, comedy, and performances for the rest of us.

This year I am all about Monday. The music lineup is solid. Ignore the Black Eyed Peas (please--maybe that will make them go away), and take your pick from The Lonely Forest (3:15-4:15pm, EMP), Champagne Champagne (4:45-5:45pm, EMP), Trucksaurus (7:45-8:45pm, EMP), Portland Cello Project (6:45-7:45pm, Northwest Court), Say Hi (2:30-3:30pm, Broad Street), Mirah (4:15-5:15pm, Broad Street), Metric (9:30-10:45pm, Broad Street), The Cave Singers (6:45-7:45pm, Mural Amphitheatre), Janelle Monae (5:45-6:45pm, Fisher Green), and Franz Ferdinand (7:45-9:00pm, Memorial Stadium). Any or all of the above is sure to please.

While the overall Bumbershoot music lineup seems to be flailing at best (above company excluded), their comedy offerings only get better, and on Monday you've got tons of great laugh options, including... (more)