Friday, March 16th 2012

Dylan, Ryan, Vlad, Brittany, Jim, and Stephanie
perform "Try That On For Size"

The festivities of St. Patrick’s Day began early for some of our audience members who were already basking in the “spirit” of the holidays at our Bit Players, Friday night showing.  To start things off, the Bit Players resurrected an old favorite entitled “Try That On For Size”, a mimed action [supplied by the audience] that the player must justify in words why he /she is doing that action.  We saw the mimed action of a mailman become interpreted by Jim Foley as Billy Blanks doing Tae Bo, the action of a skier becoming what Vlad Tenenbaum may have done on his honeymoon (??) or the way Stephanie Conrad may bowl (in the wrong direction), and an action of paying taxes becoming what Dylan Eberle construed as “Voting in Florida {Pre-2000}”

Brittany and Ryan in "Genres"

Moving into a scene game called “Genres”, where the players must perform a scene and then switch to the new genre or movie style provided by the audience .  The scene started off poignantly with Brittany Hunt and Ryan Hartigan (Hank) going on an innocent date to the movies.  As the genres changed from “Horror” to Silent Movies, the scene became weird, as we watched as Hank became a serving robot.

Ryan and Vlad perform "Location, Career, Death"

The audience delighted in the miming and jibberish of Vlad and Ryan in “Location, Career, Death” .  Without Ryan’s knowledge, Vlad recieved suggestions from the audience of a location (the Beach), a career (a Beekeeper), and an object (a corkscrew).  Then when Ryan returned to the stage, Vlad conveyed to Ryan these three items without using real words and through mimed actions. As Ryan thought he knew identity of the item, he clapped to move on to the next. The last object was used to “kill off”  Ryan and end the scene. At the conclusion of the game, Ryan then guessed what each item was.  The audience applauded loudly with each correct guess of Beach, and Beekeeper, and gave Ryan props for guessing Newport Storm beer for the object, since it’s a local favorite.

Dylan, Brittany, and Vlad in "Visual Interpreter"

“Visual Interpreter” was, by far, the audience favorite bit of the evening.  Brittany, the teenage interviewer, interviewed the resident expert on underaged drinking, Jean Claude Van der Castle, (played by Dyan).  The scene was “interpreted” by Vlad in what we call Vlad-language (mimed expressions of what the characters are saying).  We learned that Mr. Van Der Castle was an expert on drinking because he had been drinking wine from the age of two and took us though his exploits as a baby.  Baby Van Der Castle expressed at the end of a rather lively encounter on top of a building, on a tight rope, that passers-by, below on the street were “Not to  F**k with the Baby!”  And to end off the zany scene we saw Van Der Castle on a capsized ship, blowing through a conch shell to call Poseidon, The God of the Sea, and ask him for a lift.

Watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEGrHVqwSB4&feature=youtu.be

The Bit Players perform improv comedy every Friday and Saturday night at 8:00pm at the Firehouse Theatre, 4 Equality Park Place (off Broadway), Newport, RI 02840.  Please call the box office for reservations   

     401-849-FIRE (3473) 

And as always, it is BYOB!