Tag Archives: mark siano

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Breaking The Habit in Just Five Questions

Seattle comedy troupe The Habit, formed in 1995 at the U-Dub, reunited last year with a well-received new show. Starting tonight, and for the next four weekends, they’ll be performing another new show at Green Lake’s Bathhouse Theater. As their tickets page promises–“No improv!” (Thank Jeebus.) We caught up with original member David Swidler for five quick questions.

Are you getting funnier as you get older?
Yes, and much more concerned with Hispanic voting trends.

What would’ve been better for ticket sales–Obama winning or Romney winning?
Our projections show that a 269-269 tie with the House of Representatives deciding would have been the best. For comedy sake, however, the election of Kansas governor Farts VonTinkledouche.

If you guys were One Direction, who would be Zayn?
Jeff, since he has six million underage Twitter followers.

How are Green Lake audiences different than Capitol Hill audiences?
Green Lake audiences are the best audiences in the world!!!

Will Mark Siano be singing a song in the show? (His audience sort of expects it…)
All of our shows start out as an hour-long Mark song, and then through the rehearsal process are whittled down to thirty seconds.

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Theatre

Modern Luv About to be All Up in Your Inbox, NYC

Mark Siano and Opal Peachey have created something weird and sexy (“swexy” riffs Siano) out of their alternate-universe two-online-worlds-colliding cabaret-musical Modern Luv. It was fresh from a well-received run at the Triple Door when I saw its “unplugged” incarnation Tuesday night at the Rendezvous Jewelbox.

I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard at a musical since Gutenberg! The Musical–which also featured a small but hard-working cast, dreams of making it big, and largely imagination-based production values. Modern Luv‘s cabaret roots are evident in the easy informality of its meta-narration, and the way Siano beams out at you as if you’re all guests at his party. He’s got a lounge singer’s sweaty sheen and broad smile, and displays enough jack-of-all-stages hoofer aptitude that I started picturing his soft-rock Emcee in Cabaret.

Essentially, Modern Luv is, as the title indicates, a love story, but, as the “luv” suggests, not a sappy one. Actually, there are several loves: the Seattle Siano-New York Peachey encounter, sure, but also that of disaffected hipsters for musicals, of home (Amish country, Seattle), of our increasingly virtual reality. It is only okay, after all, to for a hipster to love his or her smart phone. To love-love someone verbally is…outré. You must luv them instead.

Mark Siano

These kinds of semiotic distinctions are where most of the humor in Modern Luv arises. From the opening “Texting song,” followed by the instant-classic “Up in Your Inbox,” the show wastes no time letting you know that you are an urbane, plugged-in, roué who has been around the e-block. Every song is loaded with signifiers, and Siano and Peachey are, as fish born in this sea, able to perform them for you winningly, with the assistance of back-up dancers.

Siano’s Minority-Report-style Googling of Peachey is especially on the nose, in its translation to the stage. It relies on the audience’s willingness to go with it, but that’s where the participatory charm of show grows on you, watching Peachey impersonate her Facebook photo gallery.

There’s an improvisatory flair to some of the interstitial scenes–thanks in part to the participation of David Swidler, who I won’t review because I find him hilarious in real life, even that time, he assures me, he was in real pain after the accident. But there’s also improvisatory hurry-up set-ups (Larry David is often guilty of this–“So…uh…what’s…you’re upset with me because I did [some inappropriate Larry David thing]?” he’ll instruct his scene partner).

With a range of pop-styled music by Siano and performed by The Enablers, the show boasts both a Soft Rock Medley and Broadway Musical Medley (“It was like what was in my heart just came right up and out my throat!” says the impish Peachey) that rejoice in the power of music to overcome suppressed emotion. When the audience joined in on a soft-rock lyric at Siano’s urging, it was with the presence and timing of a choir bursting to sing.

“She Can’t Call,” a song about the interruption of their romance also features what I think is the first musical portrayal of “Damn You Auto-Correct”–here, a hooded gremlin who runs in and physically replaces words with mad lib items. “I’m Not The Man I am Online” lets Siano drop the act a bit, and express (finally) some unmediated emotion (no disrespect to his soft-rock stylings, which demonstrate an esoteric technical proficiency in yelps, sotto voce baritone, and falsetto).

“We can leave if it’s lame,” whispered someone in the dark before the show started. They didn’t. They laughed a lot, instead, and maybe…just maybe…learned a little something about love, too.

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Theatre

Tuesday is Modern Luv‘s Last Seattle Stand, Before New York Calls

Seattle soft-rock god Mark Siano is taking his cabaret-musical collaboration with not-so-soft-rock Opal Peachey, Modern Luv, on the road to New York City. To prepare for a smaller venue than Seattle’s Triple Door, where, Siano tells me, they had five well-sold shows, they’re holing up at the Rendezvous’ Jewelbox Theater for a one-night-only, 21+ show on April 10 (tickets: $15 advance).

“It’s an ‘Unplugged’ version,” Siano says, featuring a piano and a drum kit since the 65-seat theater doesn’t allow for much in the way of a band. But other than that, not all that much has changed. The Triple Door audiences laughed at all the right places, and one show sold out entirely. He’s tightened it up to a streamlined 90 minutes with no intermission, and changed a few Seattle-centric jokes that New York audiences wouldn’t be expected to get. A controversial “Seattle vs. New York” compare-and-contrast has stayed in the picture.

Modern Luv, like the “5th ACT’s” First Date, takes on love in a time of social media, but Siano says it’s “half-fiction, half-memoir.” He and Peachey are not an item, but they did “discover” each other online when Peachey showed up on YouTube covering a song Siano had, if I have this correctly, written the lyrics to. From this small spark, a “musical about cabaret performers” was born, with Siano and Peachey playing themselves in an alternate, rom-com universe. They spoke with Seattle Gay Scene about the show here.

Showman Siano is a man of many hats, so after his New York excursion, he returns, in a way, for Cafe Nordo’s May show, Cabinet of Curiosities. Set in Washington Hall, it’s a “a multi-room private collection of culinary exhibits,” and one of the rooms will be Siano’s creation. He’s also involved with the much-lauded and occasional sketch troupe The Habit–they’re preparing for a three-week run of a new show this November. (Full disclosure: We are also involved with at least one The Habit member, who pops up occasionally in these pages, and get your mind out of the gutter.)

Finally, because you’ve read this far, I can confirm that the “sparkle-tards” that Siano & Co. are accustomed to swanning about in are custom-made creations, from Sewing Specialties.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

5 Questions with Seattle Comedy Group The Habit

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The Habit perform Friday 9/16 (8 p.m.) and Saturday 9/17 (8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.) at the Bathhouse Theater. Tickets!

Seattle’s The Habit were kings of the local sketch comedy scene in the early 2000s. Now, older and wiser and bearded-er, they’ve come together to write their first all-new show in ten years and perform it for two weekends. Weekend the first just passed–earning a rave review from the Seattle Times (and everyone I talked to after the show). This Friday and Saturday are the final shows. Anyhoo, chatted with the guys, including Newly-minted Stranger genius John Osebold and comedy cabaret master Mark Siano, about the past and present of sketch.

1) I know you guys used to do comedy on the same bill as Reggie Watts…what happened to that guy?

John: Now we manage him. He’s our #2 client. After Dale Earnhardt.

Jeff: Conan asked us to perform on his tour with Reggie. I forgot to tell you guys. But I told him no.

John: To his face, I hope.

Mark: I remember those shows. The Habit would take turns farting into a sampler and loop it as a beat. Reggie Watts stole our act.

2) With John being named a Stranger Genius in the middle of your rehearsal process, have you had to change the show at all?

David: We’ve had to learn his name.

John: It’s pronounced “Magical Wonderkind Wizarding Orgasm Machine.”

David: Seriously though, we’ve all worked with Johnny since the mid-’90s, so we’ve gotten to see his genius up close and watch it grow into the amazing life force that it is now. However, many people might be surprised to learn that he can’t rhyme. Doesn’t even understand the concept.

John: But I can’t being the french doors simple put together having I think thoughts regular help me.

3) Can you please describe for The SunBreak audience what it was like trying to break into sketch comedy in L.A.?

Jeff: So, this is an unfair question, because it’s like asking us to dig into a gaping wound. Basically asking, “What did you do wrong?”

And the answer to that (sorry to not have a funny response) is…just about everything. We were obviously unprepared about how much effort we’d have to actually put in. And how “the industry” works, and how to best position ourselves, and what steps to take to increase our likelihood of succeeding. We performed shows for three people. That was humiliating. Plus, we didn’t know as much about comedy as we thought we did. We really weren’t ready to make that leap.

Also, in hindsight, I think it’s wrong to assume that a group can pack up and move to L.A. and find success. To be “successful” (in the Hollywood sense of the word) in L.A. you have to be an individual and a whore. A good whore, I don’t mean that in a bad way. You have to create every opportunity for yourself, and put yourself out there as much as possible, and network nonstop and go to every improv joint or comedy club, and just keep plugging away for years. Luck is about being in the right place at the right time. 99 percent of those individuals will never get a shot. But, 100 percent of groups who pack up and move will never get a shot. L.A. isn’t looking for unknown groups. Groups don’t succeed. You have to prove yourself as an individual comedian, and then you group together with other successfully networked individuals who are themselves proven.

Quick story–to this already too-long answer–when I first moved to L.A., I was doing freelance training for Adobe software. Completely coincidentally, I showed up at a guy’s house to help him with his computer, and it was Ross Shafer of Almost Live! fame. I was flabbergasted. (This was like meeting my idol at the time.) Instead of accepting money from him, I insisted on being paid in advice.

My question to him: Any tips to succeed in L.A.? His answer: “You don’t need to move to L.A. If you have a good product, people will find you. Stay where you are and build a crowd and word will spread if your product is truly good.” (This was two months after packing up and moving. Insert sad trumpet music: “Wah wah wah wahhhhh.”) You know what–he was right. Too bad for us!

David: I would also say you have to work 24/7. You have to meet people and audition and do open mics and perform, perform, perform. You can’t have a real job and try on the side. It has to be what you do, and even then, you need luck. The thing that amazed me was how many funny people there are in L.A. going nowhere. I mean FUNNY, amazingly funny. People performing at Improv Olympic, who just blew the roof off the place every week, and maybe I’ll see one of them in a commercial every once in a while. Whenever they talk about athletes making the jump from college/AA to the majors and getting lost, I know what they’re talking about. I guess if you really want to know what it’s like to make it in L.A., go to a batting cage and try and take a few swings in the 100mph cage.

4) You wrote all-new material for this show. What’s different about comedy writing in the 2010s?

Jeff: We can no longer rely on our bread and butter: Y2K jokes.

Mark: Writing comedy is more difficult now that television is no longer the god of entertainment. If someone suggests a commercial parody, half of us haven’t even seen the commercial in question. You have to be more clever now, and not rely on pop culture to do the funny for you.

Also, now that we rehearse in a mansion and not a crumbling basement in Wallingford, there are a lot of distractions.

John: Like gorgeous sunsets over the Olympics. Thanks a lot, God.

(Apparently the fifth question is for Elijah.–ed.)