TONIGHT!

FREE COMEDY @ JBar (James Hotel) 2Nite!

Hey Pigheads! Tonight I, Otholomieux Dionysus Schwering, will be doing stand-up alongside some of Chicagoland’s toppest performers at a FREE show at JBar in the James Hotel (610 Rush St. (Ontario & Ohio))! There’s a full bar and menu and an awesome DJ spinnin’, whatever that is…

There will performances by… Prescott Tolk (Comedy Central’s Premium Blend),
GQ & The Retar Crew (The Q Brothers (Lollapalooza), Adam Burke, Dan Polydoris, Mike Sheehan, Brendan McGowen, Ricky Carmona, Tia Avers, Renee Schultz, CJ Toledano (The Late Live Show @ Second City), Othy Schwering (OINK! with Othy Schwering), Mike Stanley,Will Miles (2 Black Dudes & an Open-Mic), Megan Gailey, Jeanie Doogan, and Willie Earl Jr. What a star-studded cavalcade of comedy!

#1 Comic in Chicago*

Photo by Anne Katherine Lesser

*as voted for by the staff of oinkshow.com© 2010 All Rights Reserved.

August 11: Prescott Tolk (Comedy Central)

TONIGHT!!!

Audio Post

Free Pizza Open Mic

ATTN: Comics!!! I’m guest-hosting an open mic tonight at Big Joe’s on Foster Ave. between Damen and Ravenswood. Free pizza and an attentive non-comic crowd!!! 10pm. The Turtle race place. Come after Globe and before Gio’s! See ya then!

Prescott Tolk – June 30!!!

Photo from PrescottTolk.com

Prescott has appeared on Comedy Central, at The Just For Laughs Festival, and was named Chicago’s #1 Comic by Comedy.com. Don’t miss him Wednesday June 30, 2010 at OINK!’s Third Anniversary Show!

Sh!t Goes Bad

Now, some people might think it’s a bit of a disaster when the audience gets sprayed with a fire extinguisher by the host of a show. Othy didn’t plan it that way; he thought the can was empty. I was probably the only one laughing in the theater, in between the coughing fits. But Othy, the trooper that he is, carried on with his closing of the show as if there wasn’t a noxious cloud spreading through the theater.

Disasters and technical breakdowns are always going to happen in theater, no matter what. I lived through my share of them onstage, from late entrances to disappearing props and costume pieces. With humans in charge of making theater happen, there’s always room for error. However, if a performer (or techie) is prepared enough, they can make the best of the shitstorm and reduce it to a fart in the wind.

(yeah, there’s an image to carry with you for the rest of the day)

There were a number of things that didn’t really jive with me when I was going through improv training. “There are no mistakes” – now THERE’S a phrase I have problems with.

Say there’s a scene going on the stage with two ’50′s soda jerks talking segregation. Fine. Wonderful. We can work with that. Then, a Chinese laborer comes in and, while directly interacting with the soda jerks, starts redirecting the Transcontinental Railroad.

Okay. Could still work, but feels really wobbly and the audience, having been bumped from the reality of the established scene, is now checking their phones for the score of the Blackhawks game–wait, who am I kidding?  Chicago doesn’t care about hockey.

Anyway–

Those are the fuck-ups that can be controlled. There’s always going to be things that can’t be controlled, walls that will fall apart, and circuits that will trip at the exact wrong moment. It’s all about what the show does with those moments, and keeping it in the realm of right.

I guess I should explain that phrase, “realm of right”. For any piece of theater, there are thousands of decisions that can be made, from the words in the lines to the volume of the music to the choosing of the light levels. As soon as they’re executed, they can either help or hurt what’s happening onstage.

I was running boards for a sketch show at CIC about a year ago, when the worst thing I could imagine happened; the lights failed. Twice. The first time, I brought up some extra blues and made it look like moonlight was coming in during a power outage. Then, the blues failed and I only had a red light just above the stage. The cast carried on with the scene, which was already supposed to be uncomfortable in tone and conversation, while I tried to figure out what to do next.

As I fortunately discovered, the breakers for the stage lights were right there in the booth. However, it felt strange to be pulling the lights back up at some random point during the scene and giving the actors something new to improvise about. The idea clicked, I waited for the right moment.

Near the end of the scene, the characters were bonding over a sing-a-long of the Tootsie Roll jingle. Right as they finished the song, I pulled all of the lights back up, making it look like electricity itself was approving their new-found togetherness. The cast smiled even more, the audience thought it was on purpose, and the show ended well that night.

Back in OINK, we have to prepare for other such things. A couple months ago, Othy was drinking onstage…as usual…and finished his mini-bottle of Jameson. He set it down and slid it across the stage, where it collided with a chair and made a very distinct tinkling sound. The audience became immediately terrified of the potential for glass-footed improvisers. However, the offstage improvisers were waiting and ready, and made a few quick catcalls:

“I don’t feel safe in this work environment, Othy.”

“Othy, I don’t have health insurance!”

The audience was immediately put at ease – if those could prepare for shattered glass on the stage, they could be prepared for anything! The rest of the show went smoothly, until Othy accidentally raped a curtain (not really).

We’re Finally on Yelp!

Hey Everyone! After almost three years of kicking ass and taking names in the Chicago comedy scene we finally got ourselves a presence on Yelp! If you’ve been to the show and had a blast, please take a minute to review us! If you came on the rare off night, come again, we’re better now promise! Thanks and see you at Our Third Anniversary Special on June 30!