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The Lord of the Screen: The Fellowship of the Pen
-- The Improv-ical
THEATER REVIEW Epic battle of good and evil
to test audience wit and cast stamina March 15, 2004 Primeval powers gather their brooding forces over the Hills of Anaheim, compliments of the Chance with its new weekend matinée piece, The Lord of the Screen: The Fellowship of the Pen - The Improvic-al. It's everything you don't expect, wrapped into a mysterious package in the form of an ominous movie script. Yes, it's a spoof on the mega hit trilogy, complete with familiar ethereal characters such as Usher [Grandstaff] (John MacDonald), Aolyn (Alex Bueno), Elroy (Matthew Harreld), Acorn (Bill Landsman), Arlyn (Wendy Braun), Gwendi (Clarissa C. Pitts), Saladriel (Meredith Young), and Bilbo Baggins (Dean Anderson), and orcs and dwarves, and hobbits provided by audience participation, and even malevolent Sauron. But it's also showbiz in all its self-agrandizing forms, from Hollywood to the stage to network TV, with Little Frida (Megan Fox), The Male (Casey Long) and The Female (Sarah Moreau) rounding up the versatile cast. The fun is to decipher all the references woven in the plot, from Little Shop of Horrors to "Survivor" to Richard Simmons, and many more. And if this cleverness isn't enough to pique your interest, the real tour de force lies in the fact that the piece is basically audience fueled improv, hence the yarn takes a unique spin every night, while being molded back into its scripted outcome. This innovative hybrid concept is the brain child of Director Oanh Nguyen, with the script co-written with Alex Bueno and Eric McGregor, live musical direction and accompaniment by Dean Anderson, and choreography by Sarah Moreau. Improv workshop techniques are provided by Alex Bueno and Meredith Young. If you do not wish to be fodder for your own improv and five minute chance at stardom, sit safely away from the front row. Irregardless, to quote a well-known less than hortatorical bumbling public figure from our deep South, your suggestions, as provided in the lobby prior to the show, will be woven into the plot at some point or other, or you might ask for your money back. My very own clever ploy of uttering a sentence in a foreign language was picked up by South-of-the-Border labor in the form of Alex Bueno, but cavalierly discarded by a less linguistically proficient cast member. The cast can select from an eclectic assortment of backstage props to interpret what catches their interest. Most impressive is their ability to carry on spur-of-the-moment impromptu "American Idol" titles and make them sound believable, even rehearsed and polished. Underlying the unscripted script is a wry satire of the entertainment industry, and an analysis of the blurring relationship between reality and make-believe, with the public's naive gullability in falling prey to marketing ploys aimed at boosting ratings to rake in ad dollars and bolster bottom lines, catering to the lowest common denominator in formulaic and hackneyed ways in the process. That is something the Chance does not do, as it pushes the envelope in a seductive and thought provoking new genre. And Casey is definitely not a girl's name: it's that of a Little Engine That Could in our backyard Magic Kingdom with its tarnished corporate pixie dust.
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THEATER ARTICLE Lord of the Screen: The Fellowhip
of the Pen March 15, 2004 Don't look for hobbits or wizards in this Fellowship, but The Lord of the Screen: The Fellowship of the Pen promises loads of laughter. Combining scripted characters with audience suggestions, the combination of improvisation and traditional theater. Guided by the Chance's Executive Director, Oanh Nguyen, and featuring live music from Dean Andersen, the "never the same show twice" performances feature Alex Bueno, Casey Long, Bill Landsman, Megan Fox, John MacDonald and Sarah Moreau, with audience participation a major part of each show as well.
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THEATER REVIEW 'Lord of the Screen' a stage-worthy
spoof March 21, 2004 The folks at The Chance Theater will be the first to admit that their creation of the title The Lord of the Screen: The Fellowship of the Pen is little more than an attempt to capitalize upon the popularity of the massively popular trio of epic films. In fact, in an enjoyable song at the show's opening, they 'fess up to precisely that, which shows you right up front what the tone of the evening will be: Good-natured spoofery, with tongue planted squarely in cheek. This squeaky-clean show (it's billed as a family affair) is a welcome amalgam of scripted comedic or parodistic scenes blended with improv comedy. The parodies aren't just of "Lord of the Rings," but also of "The Matrix" movies and television's "American Idol," while the songs are given newly written lyrics, the better with which to spoof such stage musicals as "Urinetown, the Musical," "Little Shop of Horrors" and "The Rocky Horror Show." The improvised bits, meanwhile, are drawn from the audience, in the form of ideas written on little slips of paper or yelled aloud during the course of the show. In lesser hands, something this experimental might fall flat on its face, but director Oanh Nguyen's overarching concept and story line are well thought out not only in terms of how well the actual scripted portions will work, but also with an eye toward how these will mesh with the high-wire act known as improv comedy. Nguyen's actual script, co-written with Eric McGregor and cast member Alex Bueno, satisfies more than the basic demands of good sketch comedy - the kind of stuff you'd enjoy on "Mad TV" or "Saturday Night Live" - while the new lyrics, by Nguyen, Bueno and cast member Sarah Moreau, have just the right air of screwball humor: Nothing overly sophisticated here, yet nothing baseless in terms of comedy, either. "Lord of the Screen" hits that pleasing middle ground - a theater property that's widely accessible to the mainstream yet still original and inventive. Two more plusses are that you don't need to know the shows being spoofed to enjoy this one (although it helps); and any blue material submitted by the audience is tossed before it ever sees the light of day, so this is a show you can bring the kiddies and granny to without fear of offending them. Subtitled an "Improv-ical" (for improvised musical), "Lord of the Screen," however whacked-out its sensibility, is good clean fun. The scant premise upon which the silliness is built is that of an unfinished script for a romantic comedy movie that becomes the Holy Grail sought by the story's assorted characters. Throughout, Nguyen and company have made nominal references to "Lord of the Rings." The onstage musical director, Dean Anderson, is costumed as Bilbo Baggins, while the various members of the five-woman, three-man improv troupe are given spoof characters names like Arlyn, Elroy and Saladriel. Bill Landsman does a killer impression of Andy Serkis' Gollum character and, in the closing skit, as "Acorn" - a parody of Aragorn - leads an assorted army of dwarves and hobbits to reclaim the errant script. Moreau and Casey Long use charmingly light personas as the all-purpose generic romantic couple, while Bueno, Landsman and Meredith Young prove particularly adept at meeting the demands of improv. The performance reviewed delivered Martha Stewart, George W. Bush and a "giant evil mutant cow," but the real genius of this show is that it reinvents itself every night.
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