Kelly Beeman Finishes Impress These Apes at the Top of the Heap

Congratulations to White Rainbows director Kelly Beeman for placing second in Impress These Apes!  I’m especially proud of Kelly’s strong finish in the last few weeks of the competition.

I went to a few of the shows at the start of the season.  If you watch Kelly’s videos on the website you can probably hear me supporting her by screaming like a girl.  Sadly I didn’t get to see any of the latter half of the season because I had improv class at the same day and time.  And, you know, improv waits for no one.  But I was with Kelly in spirit.

Anyways.  Way to go, Kelly!

-Matt

Congratulations, Kelly

I’m extremely proud to announce that White Rainbows director Kelly Beeman will be competing in Impress These Apes this September.  Impress These Apes is an 8-week comedy talent competition and it’s awesome.   I plan on going to see as many of the competitions as I can.  Go, Kelly!

-Matt

Thanks

Last night was closing night and I think it was our best show.   My castmates and I were on point the whole time.  And we had an awesome audience, too. They gave great reactions to everything.  Everyone laughed/gasped/groaned at all the appropriate parts.

We taped last night, too,  so keep an eye out for clips from the show on this blog later this month.

We had a great run.  I’d like to thank my friends, my family (who drove down from Michigan 5 hours to see me), my castmates’ friends and family, and the handful of strangers who came to see the show.

I can’t say enough how much I appreciate my castmates and my director for making this show the funnest, most creatively fulfilling experience of my life.

I’m writing the next White Rainbows show and aiming for a run in either January or February.  You better believe I’ll post updates once I finalize plans.

-Matt

I <3 Lesbians

Different groups of  random lesbians came out to see each of our past two performances.  And both times they totally dug it!   This is an awesome development.  When my friends come to see the show I expect them to either like it or at least have manners enough to pretend that they liked it.  But when strangers laugh at stuff and I can tell that they’re having a good time, that’s a really great feeling.

Thank you, mystery lesbians!

-Matt

User Friendly with Facebook

So I just invited everyone I know on Facebook to come and see our final 2 shows. I may have accidentally invited everyone twice actually…

Now most of these people live in California, but I checked the numbers before I moved out here and I think 1 in 10 people seems to know someone in Chicago so I hope they spread the word.
That being said, some of these people I haven’t spoken to in months if not years. My first correspondence with them is an announcement for a Vibrantly Monochromatic Gay Sketch Comedy Revue. So I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is, “Huh…When did Ari move to chicago?”

-Arianna

Opening Night

Thanks so much to everyone who came out last night!

Our show went off without a hitch.  It’s hard to put into words what it was like to have this show that I’ve been working on for about seven months finally come to life.  My feelings are all over the place.  But I’m looking forward to three more weeks of great performances.

-Matt

Finally!

So after a long time of waiting and deliberating, I finally turned in a bio for the program.  I hope people think it is funny.  Oh I do, I do I do I do.

The show is coming up and we’re all stoked about it.  All the props are in and looking magical.  We had our tech rehearsal last night and it went really well.  Peeps are coming over to my place to work out some loose kinks and get this show tight as disco pants.

Kev!n

The Final Countdown

Opening night is less than a week away.  I feel like I’m at the top of a rollercoaster before it drops:  mostly excited and a little anxious.  And there’s a lurching feeling at the bottom of my stomach.  But like I said, I’m mostly excited.  It’s going to be awesome.

-Matt

Wigs

There’s a lot of drag in this show.  So accordingly we got a few wigs.

Wigs creep me out.  I don’t know what it is about them.  They remind me of those Tribbles from Star Trek.   Or Cousin Itt from the Addams family.  Basically anything hairy with no face creeps me out.

Right now I’m keeping the wigs in my apartment but I think I’m going to hand each wig to its respective castmate.  Yeah, I’m weird.

-Matt

Happy Pride

Me and Arianna at Pridefest.

So  on Saturday I went to Pridefest with fellow White Rainbows castmate Arianna.  Here we are outside of the Whole Foods.  Two things:

1.  Arianna is a gay guy magnet.  She’s adorable, as evidenced by this picture.  Arianna also has a superfun personality.  Gay guys swarmed to her all day long.  I unfortunately did not capitalize on the gay guy swarming because I can be shy.

2.    The Threadless t-shirt I wore got lots of attention too.  I had random people either compliment or comment on the shirt and a few people had conversations with me.  Apparently a lot of Iowans live in Chicago.   The thing is I’m terrible at talking to strangers.  Like I said in the above paragraph, I can be shy.  So sometimes I come across as snotty but it’s really just that I don’t know what to say to people I don’t know.  I’m not that hot at small talk.

Even though I had fun, Pride kind of annoys me on a certain level.  It’s lost its purpose.  It’s not political anymore.  Over the decades it’s morphed into a big drunken orgy with gay dudes blowing each other behind dumpsters.  Eh.  Whatever.  On the other hand you could probably make an argument that we deserve to have our day of celebration in light of all the political crap going on.

Anyways, this was Arianna’s first pride!  Can you believe it?  I had to skip the parade on Sunday because I have improv class at the same time and I’m all dedicated to comedy like that.  I’ll probably see the parade next year.

-Matt