Rush N Disco is a man and a woman who perform various musical routines, mostly comic. The highlight and obvious crowd-pleaser was their lusty rendition of “Smell Yo Dick” but they also sang songs reminiscent of the 1920s, led breathing exercises, roared, and rapped. While their skits were hit and miss, they mostly scored with the audience.
A video of Tommy Smith, called “Tommy Smith on Playwriting,” brilliantly lampooned serious drama writers. Beginning with the premise that musical theatre and revivals are popular right now, he shuns authors who write “important” new plays that no one performs and are only “read by thirty people.” Clearly tongue-in-cheek, Smith nonetheless reminds us of an author’s intended audience and the (de)value of work that no one experiences, especially theatre that never sees the stage.
Mike Daisey hilariously and meanderingly rants about how “art can’t save you,” how “we like to make ourselves artists,” how we are self-indulged in our “remix culture,” and how we marvel at the “levels” of referential art pieces then blog about them. As he eviscerated bloggers, he also acknowledges that we all judge constantly. The purpose and fun of the theatre, he says, is to create and energize mobs. With that, he says we should all “man up,” put our dick on the table and cut it a little, see if it bleeds, because we don’t really know what will come out; which is to say, we need to take our own risks if we are going to judge the risks made by others.
tEEth thrilled and disoriented audiences with their Halloweenish performance. The actors made scared faces, horrified moans, and reiterated a few gestures. Then an ear-blasting white noise pounded our ears as bright strobe lights flashed in our eyes, faster and faster, until the initially tame fright became truly shocking.
Reggie Watts offered more of his tried-and-true improv comedy, featuring manipulated dialogue and looped songs. Shifting accents, his voice waning in and out, muttering and singing falsettos, changing subjects, varying his vocal pitch, running through identifiable genres of discourse, Watts does what he does best. At times unintelligible, and with some improvisatory scenes falling flatter than others, Watts still manages to be funny, inspiring, and charming. He carries the show with the force of his personality and the enormity of his talent.
Posted by Dusty Hoesly

We see a couple walking onstage in front of a projection of a tree-lined sidewalk, the classic girl-has-a-crush-on-her-best-male-friend routine. Some in the audience will recognize the scene from Teen Wolf. Watts references Star Wars dialogue about unacceptable failure, commercials with music and images that have no bearing on the product advertised, the scary “it puts the lotion in the basket” dialogue from The Silence of the Lambs, Rick-rolling, and Kirk Cameron.
These upsets of expectations and send-ups of familiar cultural tropes play better for humor than provocation. We see a woman projected on a screen and talking in front of a white wall, as Watts talks with her about the role of social networking sites, like Facebook, and how they affect our ability to relate to each other. As she talks she finally walks onstage, a film-and-screen apparatus attached to her body, filming her as she talks. The ninja-techie removes the contraption and Watts continues to talk to the large projection screen instead of to her directly on stage. This bit is a satirical commentary on how we are losing our ability to directly communicate with the people who are near us, but it’s also a well-known point and Watts adds little to the dialogue with this scene.
More perceptive is the casual observation on how people in relationships often talk past each other, or have outsized expectations for each other (the woman tells him: “All I want is for you to know instinctively what I need, and it’s not there”). Or the woman who is afraid to swim, thinks there could be someone at the door, and pretends to be in love with people she happens to be walking by. Watts cheers her up by singing to her, only to turn the song into a sexual come-on (“I wanna fuck you just a little bit, not all the way in, not enough to qualify as sex”). Here, compassionate intimacy becomes a violation. People yearn for closeness beyond reason or offer vulgar notions of normalcy. At any rate, it’s hilarious.
Perhaps Watts is commenting on how we are selling ourselves, too attentive to our appearances and our Facebook pages. Perhaps he’s showing us that our self-fashioning reproduces tropes from mass culture. Maybe he’s just having fun, tweaking recognizable scenes to absurd lengths. As funny as they are, these disparate scenes need more to string them together, something beyond the amazing verbal and sonic skills Watts has already shown in his previous work.
Posted by Dusty Hoesly

3:15 p.m. – Return to the Feldman with my buddy Emily. We’re early. “I heard there’s a European porn magazine hidden in the boardroom!” I say and we head back to investigate. WHOA! Mike Bonnano himself is sitting at the table with his laptop open looking a tad road weary. We introduce ourselves and I’m so star-struck I reintroduce Emily who graciously shakes Mr. Bonanno’s hand for the second time. Awkward laughter. “Is that coffee I smell?” he asks. Star-tarded Sarah offers Mr. B. her half consumed Americano, promising I don’t have anything contagious. He takes a sip and thanks me, then gets a phone call so Emily and I flee.
See you at How to be a Yes Man | Sept. 6 | 3 pm – 4 pm | PNCA Campus, Room 204
Posted by: Sarah Hoopes
Photo by: Patrick Sullivan