Oct 30

Free-Flowing Fluids in “GoreFest X: 28 Days Latte”

Photo Credit: Ryan Kelly Coil; Nothing like a mid-morning snack.

presented by ImprovBoston

Writer/Lyricist/Director: Don Schuerman
Composer/Music Direction: Steve Gilbane
Choreography by Sejal Patel

ImprovBoston
40 Prospect St.
Cambridge, MA 02139
October 24 – 31, 8pm and 10pm shows
ImprovBoston Facebook Page

Review by Gillian Daniels

(Cambridge) ImprovBoston’s 28 Days Latte begins with a toilet-cleaning scene that will stir unpleasant memories in most people who have seen the dark side of the food service industry. Brandishing a plunger, Brendan Mulhern makes sure to let the audience know what sort of splattering they’re in for. Even before a zombie plague hits the dwellers of the Cambridge coffee shop, GoreFest X lives up to its name with audience-splashing internal fluids.

Watching the improv musical come together is an impressive feat, but ImprovBoston has had a great deal of practice marrying songs to blood-soaked jokes. The 10th Annual Halloween Horrorshow knows just the formula to layer the scatological humor for the broadest laughs. Depicting disemboweled homeless and the awkwardness of end of the world sex, 28 Days Latte revels in its tastelessness and hopes the audience is there for the mindlessly juvenile ride. It does just what it says on the tin.

Beyond “zombie apocalypse,” the show doesn’t have much in the way of plot. This is fine. ImprovBoston veterans like Patrick French, Megan Golermann, Alex LeBaron, Ben Scurria, Kara Gelormini, and Julie Devito are given plenty of breathing room to bounce off one another. Together, they build scenes that reference all facets of nerd horror culture, from the Manic Pixie Dream Girl charm of Zooey Deschanel to the almost comically grim comics of Frank Miller. The show isn’t particularly tight but the jokes
are.

As I watched, fake blood drying on my temple, I didn’t compare it to the zombie-virus episode of the television show, Community, or the hit film, Shaun of the Dead (2004). Zombies have been hot for more than a few years at this point. Instead, I thought of last year’s performance, GoreFest 9: MASSacre General Hospital, similar in packaging to 28 Days Latte but more tragic in tone. With a clinic as its backdrop, it was a looser, gloomier yarn. The stakes are high in both shows, though, even if 28 Days Latte is flippant in tone despite (or because of) the end of the world. If you feel your holiday is lacking in pretend fluids, I suggest grabbing a raincoat and seeing ImprovBoston’s Halloween offering before this year’s GoreFest is complete.

Jul 02

T: An MBTA Musical — Charlie Takes A Wicked Funny Ride

Emily Hecht as Alice and Brett Johnson as Charlie in T: An MBTA Musical. Plays June 30-July 9 at ImprovBoston, 40 Prospect Street in Cambridge. Tix/Info: 617-576-1253 or improvboston.com. Photo by Ben Snitkoff

T: An MBTA Musical, music and lyrics by Melissa Carubia, book by John Michael Manship, ImprovBoston, 6/30/11-7/9/11. http://www.improvboston.com/shows/musical?ref=slide.  Mature Themes.  **Warning:  should not be viewed by kids, pets, bikes, and particularly tourists and freshmen (we need people to keep coming to Boston, and they don’t need to know the truth until it’s too late!)

Reviewed by Becca Kidwell

LISTEN TO ORIGINAL MUSIC EXCERPTS

Most people have been there at one time or another:  the T (translation for non-Bostonians–the subway).  For those who know it is a frustrating experience that makes you want to hop in your car and drive to the country or Rhode Island.  Delays, fires, sports fans, and vomit are all familiar sights on that are highlighted in the hilarious new musical at ImprovBoston–T:  An MBTA Musical. If interactive/improvisational theatre scares you, don’t worry:  this is a scripted show.  This show makes you laugh until it hurts; then, you are not so angry at the train on the way back–until the train stands still for twenty minutes because of a fire on the rail. Continue reading