Show: 2nd Chicago Red Line at PushPush 8/17/02

Last night, Chicago Red Line was back at PushPush with The Position, Wierd Spelled Wrong and JaCKPie. Pre-sales were a little slower than last time, but by the time the doors closed to start the show, we had another full house. We've had really terrific audiences in quantity, and more importantly in quality.

We did a little bit of a different setup for the show getting only one suggestion at the top of the show and then each cast doing their thing until edited off the stage by the next team. The Position kicked us off to a great start with lots of big offers (my favorite of which was the bi-noc-u-lars that "made everything more extreme"). They had Zell Miller, a bucket, a stone skipping prodigy who could skip a stone right across the Atlantic and hit a speaker in Parliament, and a shower that burns the dirt off. Mark edited them at a high point and began Wierd. His piece drew the bucket from The Position's stuff and centered around the landlord who realized he couldn't live without it. He also had a really funny rock band who, in the middle of a jam rehearsal, could still hear the slightest sound ("I can hear the landlord breathing at the front door"). Then, JaCKPie stepped in beginning with a scene in Parliament. We also had a very unusual "ladder league" baseball game, a firefighter who sold pizzas on the job, newspaper headlines spreading rumors of health hazards connected to tobacco, and a member of Parliament who loved his wig a little too much (the skipped stone from The Position later killed him).

For the finale, all of us performed Reel to Real, our version of an improvised movie for the stage. The whole thing involved McDaddy, played by Samuel L. Jackson played by John, fighting a war with Ray Kroc and the Hamburgular. Appearing in supporting roles were H.R.Pufnstuf, Long John Silvers, and Captain D's parrot. It was quite entertaining from a performance standpoint anyway. The audience seemed to get a kick out of it. Everyone played their butts off for the whole night. At the sweaty conclusion, we all took our bows and headed off for sustenance at Manny's as is our custom.