This weekend’s performances were brought to you by the letter “B”. From Bacon, Boatswains, Birthdays, Babies, Bono, Bachelorettes, and Breakfast pastries (plus various other “B’s” thrown in for good measure), it was the BIG BITE out of the BIT Players BOOK of “B”.
Friday night’s show hosted by Frank Fusaro, alongside fellow Bits, Lobo Linhares, Brittany Hunt, Neal Leaheey, Stephanie Conrad, and Jim Foley had an air of experimentation and fun with this group of players who are seldom cast together.
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| The Bit Players perform "Story, Story, Die!" |
In Friday’s first bit, “Story, Story, Die!”, the audience was also up for the unusual with their suggestion of a title of a story that has never been told. Played by the entire cast, and directed by Jim, the story, “Tales of Fatness” saw the main character Emanuel coming to terms with truth of his weight issues. After staring at his large image in the mirror Emanuel decides to sign up for Pilates class. Soon afterward Emanuel tries to expand his fitness repertoire and begins working out with weights until he drops a dumbbell on a woman. After apologizing profusely, the woman agrees to go out to dinner with Emanuel. While Emanuel sticks to his low calorie regimen with a salad, his date devours chocolate cake in front of Emanuel. Emanuel finds himself, not only hungry, but also aroused by this woman’s gluttony and proceeds to swallow his date whole.
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| Frank, Neal, and Stephanie in "Good Cop / Bad Cop" |
Again, up to the challenge of providing imaginative suggestions, the audience kept their creative juices flowing for “Good Cop / Bad Cop” with the crime of killing Marge Simpson, with BACON, in The Cave of Wonders (from Disney’s Aladdin). In this bit, the perpetrator, played by Neal must confess (guess) to his crime, guided by clues from our cops played by Frank and Stephanie. The crowd delighted in watching Neal squirm under the interrogation. Deftly acknowledging the first two items, Neal struggled with the location of the crime as Stephanie and Frank inundated Neal with countless Disney references, until the site was prized from the web of clues.
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| The Bit Players in "Half Life" |
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| Jim and Stephanie in "Half Life" |
“Half Life” a bit that has not been played by the players in a long while was resurrected from the Bit Player attic toy chest. In this bit, the players have to reenact a fairy tale, initially telling the story in one minute timed by the host, Frank. The tale is then retold in half that time, 30 seconds, then 15 seconds, then 5 seconds, and finally 1 second. The audience provided Snow White as the tale, and laughed along with the frenetic pace of the scenes , but especially with Jim (Prince Charming) who got to dive on top of the “hot girl”, Stephanie (Snow White) to end the game.
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| Lobo, Jim, Frank, and Brittany in "Irish Drinking Song" |
Audience member, Adrienne a sailor, but more specifically, a BOATSWAIN (Bos’n) took a little good natured ribbing from the Bit Players as he freely admitted to watching after his friend Henry’s Mast as a description of what a Bos’n does. Adrienne and his friend Henry became the inspiration behind the next bit, “Irish Drinking Song” performed by Lobo, Jim, Frank, and Brittany.
Another bit dusted off from its attic confines, “Improv Line” was a game happily received by the crowd. In this bit, the players must follow the rules of the host in this improv gauntlet. Those players failing to play by the rules are buzzed out to the back of the line and replaced by another player. The first rule the players endured was creating a scene where they could not speak any word with the letter “C”, followed by no letter “E”. One by one the players faltered and were sent packing. In the next rounds the rules changed to; “Speaking only in questions”, followed by “Speaking in Song Titles”, then “doing an impression of a famous person”, then finally, “Each sentence beginning with the letter “W”.
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| Jim and Neal (50's style duet), Brittany(Heavy Metal), Stephanie (Pop), and Frank (Rap) in "Telethon" |
Ending the first set on Friday was the bit “Telethon”. In this bit about a fictitious telethon for an audience suggested cause, the players get a genre of music in which they will sing fro the cause. In this Telethon for Childhood Actors hosted by Lobo, we saw a 50’s/Little Richard style duet by Neal and Jim all about Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel Air), with Jim and Neal even doing the “Carlton Dance”. Brittany was endowed with Heavy Metal in which she sang(?) a song all about Lindsay Lohan. Stephanie was given “Crappy Pop” as her genre of music where she sang(ala Adele) about killing Corey Feldman. Finally it was Frank up with his Rap style intonation about Sean Astin, (aka Samwise Gamgee of LOTR and Mikey of Goonies fame), rapping out “Goonies Don’t Die!”
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| Jim, with The Bit Players, "Serenade" Birthday Girl, Amy |
In the second set, BIRTHDAY girl, Amy was “Serenaded” by the Bits. Amy a 3rd grade teacher from Westerly, celebrating her special day, acknowledged her boyfriend, Jay from Johnston, also a teacher of Health and a marriage counselor. All of this information about the couple, supplied the Bits with lots of good fodder for an improvised song all about them.
Friday night concluded with a “BLUES Song” all about having a BABY. Brittany made the crowd squirm (even the men in the audience) with her verse about the enlargement her perineum. Owwwwwwwccccchh!
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| The Bit Players sing "The Blues" |
Saturday night saw not only new players with Dylan Eberle, Stephanie Conrad, John Mulligan, Clayon McFarlane, and hosted by Vlad Tenenbaum, but it had an amped up energy with all of the celebrations going on.
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| John, Vlad, Clayon, and Stephanie in "Slideshow" |
After the posse of late bachelorettes seated themselves, Dylan took them all on a wacky trip to Antarctica in “Slide Show” In this bit, Dylan narrates his slides, portrayed by the posing of his fellow players, where he must justify their positions in the context of his story. As Dylan took us through the environs of this cold, desolate place on an electronic Snow Elephant we meet the first of the hobos (that will appear throughout the show). These Arctic hobos teach Dylan how to identify what is edible and adopt him into their incestuous family of hobos.
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| Dylan, Clayon, and Stephanie in "Good Cop / Bad Cop" |
In Saturday night’s take on “Good Cop / Bad Cop”, Dylan and Stephanie take on the role as cops, and persuade Clayon, the crime’s architect, to confess to killing BONO (lead singer of U2), with a BREAKFAST Toaster Strudel, in an elevator.
“Doo Run” a musical bit, was up next in the lineup. Grant, a Customer Service Rep for a Golfing Company was given up by his friends to be the topic of an improvised song sung about him. Although he initially was not happy with his friends for being the guinea pig of the group, he enjoyed his moment of fame lived out through the Bit Players version of his life.
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| John, with the Bit Players, "Serenade" Birthday Girl, Mary |
Celebrating her 50th BIRTHDAY with the Bit Players, Mary was showcased with a “Serenade” song. Mary a nurse, partying alongside her girlfriends from New York was living it up in high style without her husband and four kids, and having the time of her life. Mary was not only honored in song by the Bit Players, she was also honored with a movie made by our in-house Firehouse Theater graphic s artist from pictures secretly sent to the theater beforehand, by her friends.
“Bartender” finished the first set on Saturday. With Stephanie and Vlad as the bar’s proprietors, they are responsible for providing advice to their patrons who frequent their bar and have unique problems which they disclose through an improvised song. The audience provided John with “a long wait” which he adapted to his musical tale of getting his new iPhone and eating it, lamenting that he thought it was an Apple. Vlad melodically instructed John to call his iPhone lodged in his abdomen repeatedly until the vibrations caused it to become expelled. Clayon, given “hobo’s” as his topic sang about not wanting the hobos to loiter and beg for money. Although not morally sound advice, Stephanie, answered Clayon’s dilemma by telling Clayon to just kill them! Finally Dylan, dealing with sexual harassment at work, as an intern with the company, was perplexed with how to stop his coworker from these unwanted acts. Again, Stephanie provided Dylan with a solution to introduce his coworker to a hobo.
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| Dylan, John, and Stephanie in "Moondoggie" |
In the second set , it was Dylan, John, and Stephanie who provided the single voice as the “Moondoggie” with Vlad as the host. In this bit the audience provided cooking as the topic of expertise. Vlad interviewed our expert, Dr. Simone, from France. Simone admitted that when he was a young lad, he found some limburger cheese on the sidewalk and made a sandwich. On Simone’s next outing, he found a BROKEN BOTTLE and stabbed a BANKER and took over his shop. Afterwards, Simone made BREAD out of the BANKER’s BODY, and became famous. When asked by the audience what his favorite dish was to cook, Simone replied creepily, “What are you doing later?” When asked by another audience member what was his favorite color, Simone, simply replied, “Dead!”
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| Stephanie, Clayon, Dylan, and John in "Irish Drinking Song" |
BACHELORETTE, Kara was highlighted in the next bit of the night, “Irish Drinking Song”. Kara, a manager of a company, was enjoying her night out with her gal-pals in celebration of her upcoming nuptials (in two weeks) to her partner, Sarah, in Sturbridge, MA. The Bit Players composed an improvised song about this no-nonsense, company CEO/Hitman (aka BILL Collector) who had a penchant for beating down men who don’t pay their BILLS!
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| John and Dylan perform "Tap The Audience" with Jenna and her Maid of Honor |
More celebrations were in order as BACHELORETTE, Jenna and her Maid of honor were called to the stage to play alongside Clayon and Dylan in “Tap The Audience”. In this bit when the players need words to complete their dialog, Jenna and her MoH were “tapped” to provide that dialog. In this scene, Dylan and Clayon were Mall Security, with Clayon having anger management issues, and Dylan was tasked with trying to help his partner deal with his problem. The scene ended with Clayon, again eating more BREAKFAST, toaster strudel.
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| Dylan, Stephanie, and Vlad in "Visual Interpreter" |
Because the Bit Players were flying through their set list, “Visual Interpreter” was added to the mix. With Stephanie as the interviewer, and Dylan as the expert, Vlad “interpreted” their dialog, (not necessarily for the hearing impaired) in a way only Vlad can. Provided with “Taking Care of BABIES”, Dylan(aka Jean Claude Van Der Castle) leant his narrative skills to being the expert on this topic, in this disturbing yet hilarious tale of being a nanny.
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| The Bit Players receive a standing ovation after Saturday night's performance |
Ending the night with “BLUES Song” the Bit Players each added their verse to this bluesie song, with a chorus of “I’ve got the low-down, dirty Honeymoon Blues” in which the audience clapped and sang along with gusto. The crowd on-hand rewarded the Bit Players with a standing ovation in appreciation of their entertaining efforts…. BRAVO, BIT Players,…. BRAVO!!!!
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 and information about all of the shows 401-849-FIRE (3473) And it is always BYOB!
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