American Idle (the bad pun is on purpose)

We just had an epic experience at the I.O. Theater, specifically at a performance of The Armando. We live close to the I.O. Theater and have a friend who does The Armando every so often, and it's one of our fave improv shows in the city. We knew something was up tonight when the place was unbelievably packed and got excited, hoping the guest monologist/Armando was one of the guys from Beer Shark Mice who were here this past weekend. Well...it turns out that the "Armando" was a famous young man with whom I was not familiar--someone from the most recent season of American Idol (he took 2nd place). He was basically ridiculous, not in a good way; but the resulting show (from an absolutely all-star cast of improvers) was one of the best I've ever seen. Look above for the guest post by disc0 for an in-depth comedic analysis. This cast was awesome--and introduced me to yet another female comedienne in this city who is brilliant. The only bummer about I.O. is you don't get the performers names because it isn't a set cast, so I can't tell you who all these amazing people are--you just have to believe.

(on a semi-related note, has nothing to do with I.O. but just because it's about comedy: we saw The Ten yesterday afternoon and we were REALLY EXCITED about it. Basically, it's ten loosely related comedic sketches based on the Ten Commandments. I loved some of the sketches, and I absolutely hated others. This pains me to say, because the guys who did this movie also did The State and Wet Hot American Summer, and I adore them. But for real guys; I could truly do without you making another rape joke, EVER again. Seriously, it would make my life better if I--and the rest of the world--never had to see a depiction or simulation of rape on film, video, stage, whatever, whether dramatic or comedic, prison or stranger or date. And I can't believe I just typed about comedic simulations of rape, because the concept really makes no sense, but they made their way into The Ten, rather graphically. And that really just pisses me off. It hurts people and you can learn to deal with your fear in another way. Please and Thank You.)