The title of writer/director Mark Pracht’s second installment to his Four-Color Trilogy, a series about the comic books publishing industry, could easily be mistaken for one of the real-world pre-Code, sultry cheesecake books Pracht’s play centers on. But it’s actually a reference to the markedly un-horny Seduction of the Innocent, German American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham’s […]
Author Archives: Dan Jakes
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Members only
“If the Internet taught me anything,” says Logan, a shaggy-haired, newly-out incoming college freshman played by Ben Ballmer, “it was that gay people are awesome.” He’s blessed in that everyone in his life, from his childhood best friend (Sophie Murk) to his new Diversity House residence hall roommates, accepts him for his true self; the […]
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Sales floor Stockholm syndrome
Remote work, for those fortunate enough to enjoy it, has killed off many aspects of professional life that were long overdue to be put down: Agonizing commutes. $18 cafeteria salads. Rambling daily standup meetings. But one collateral casualty worth mourning has been the workplace friendship, where—through a mix of Stockholm syndrome and shared experiences—people who […]
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‘Did you hear about this?’
We don’t want to jinx anything, but when it comes to live performance, have the vibes this summer felt a little . . . dare we say . . . better? For a lot of queer comedic writers and performers, the answer is likely a resounding, “God, no,” which would be a fair response to […]
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Queer Singapore stories
Last year, speaking to a BBC reporter about the Singapore government repealing Section 377A, a colonialist-era holdover that criminalized gay sex, local LGBTQ+ historian Isaac Tng paraphrased the gay community’s mixed response to the news as follows: “It’s like a nice, hot cup of coffee,” he says, “that got left on the table.” It’s a […]
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Satirical Race Theory makes comedy look easy
The phrase “white spaces” evokes quite a few strong images. Kohl’s. The LDS Church. Late-night talk show desks. Bar Harbor, Maine. And, for too many comics, improv clubs. It’s no secret that the sketch, stand-up, and improv worlds have long been incubators for exclusion and toxicity as much as laughter, and clubs have—to varying levels […]
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Out in orbit
Originally developed by the Philadelphia-based Pig Iron Theatre Company in 2015, this queer adventure drag alt-comedy feels both like a natural fit for Hell in a Handbag Productions and a reach light-years away from its usual projects—sisters from across the multiverse, you could say. Depressed and apathetic about modern dating, a young gay man (Robert […]
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Don’t ask why it’s funny
A lot of funny people would call Bruce McCulloch a comedy legend—just none of them named “Bruce McCulloch.” For more than 30 years, the writer, director, actor, musician, and founding member of The Kids in the Hall has been an influential voice across comedy mediums. A punk aficionado with a love of the inexplicable, McCulloch […]
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Teenage traumas
Ask any middle-aged person about their first romantic breakup, and there’s a good chance they’ll laugh. Ask about their first friend breakup, on the other hand: no laughter. Director Ericka Ratcliff’s Steppenwolf for Young Adults stage adaptation of Mahogany L. Browne’s 2021 novel-in-verse Chlorine Sky uses the dissolution of a relationship between two high school […]
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Roasted, with love
Brooklynite and professional ballbuster Ashley Gavin has a nickname among her fans: “Mommy.” Or, as rudely shouted by one lady in the audience last week, “asshole.” She’s technically neither, but as a nationally touring stand-up and host of the comedy podcast We’re Having Gay Sex, that hasn’t stopped her from cultivating a significant following of […]
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An emotional willkommen
Like many of the American musical theater greats, Cabaret is one of those shows that can suffer from style-creep, wherein an unwritten but generally agreed-upon aesthetic tradition grows into self-parody. For John Kander and Fred Ebb’s legendary pre-WWII Berlin-set romantic drama (based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten and […]
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Doff we now our gay apparel
There are two Christmas pantomimes based upon 19th-century fables currently playing on Chicago stages, and unless Mary Zimmerman has been up to some dramatic retooling, it’s safe to assume this is the only one that features crotch sparks. Producer Jaq Seifert’s cheeky, irreverent holiday-themed burlesque revue returns for its sixth edition and first back from […]
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American Blues plants a whole holiday garden
Frank Capra’s 1946 Christmas classic film is packed frame-by-frame with small moments of storytelling perfection, and as I get older, there’s one that just guts me like a fish. Exhausted, panicked, and facing certain financial and reputational ruin, George Bailey tries in vain to cajole Zuzu, his littlest one, to bedtime. “I’m not sleepy,” she […]
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Riot grrrl witch hunt
The surrealist, sometimes anarchic style of British playwright Caryl Churchill’s prose invites a lot of directorial interpretation and creativity from the theater artists who’ve been drawn to her mesmerizing work for the better half of a century. And yet, I don’t think I’ve witnessed a more seamless marriage of her words and a thematic overlay […]
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Chris Gethard tiptoes into uncharted territory
Comedian, author, and volunteer ambulance driver Chris Gethard may be a fully Boylan-blooded New Jerseyan, but he’s not shy about the extent to which his improv and stand-up DNA has been imprinted by the comedy scene here in Chicago. “Years ago, I was booked to host a stage at Lollapalooza,” remembers Gethard as we talk, […]