Brave New Workshop's annual holiday* comedy sketch show is becoming another holiday tradition I never miss; I've seen it every year since 2019 (minus two years for... some global event I can't recall). The title changes every year, the sketches morph and get shuffled around with new ones added, but what doesn't change is the laughter that gets us through the stress and craziness of the holiday season. This year's show is entitled
The Chaos of the Bells, and it's delightful chaos. The show
continues through January 17 at the Dudley Riggs Theatre, to be followed by
The Holiday Hangover which will run about a month. And if you love BNW, you can buy the
Punchy Pass, that gets you tickets to four shows throughout the season for the price of three. And for more comedy on Hennepin Avenue, check out
my favorite improv show Family Dinner, in which some of our best improvisors create a family before your eyes, and actually eat dinner, playing every Friday and Saturday at 8pm through the end of the year in the entry-level space at Dudley Riggs (BNW performs upstairs).
This year's all-star cast includes BNW's longest reigning cast member Lauren Anderson along with other returning favorites Denzel Belin, Isabella Dunsieth, and Doug Neithercott, and one of my favorite comedic performers whom I've never seen at BNW before, Rita Boersma. She fits right in with this group, all of whom are uniquely hilarious and play very well together. The perform about a dozen sketches (written by the performers along with director Caleb McEwan) that feel like the greatest hits of past Christmas shows, along with a few new sketches. I recognized and laughed again at sketches about something called "Only Hams" (which is exactly what you think it is), the effect Josh Groban's holiday music has on people, the worst Christmas song in history - "Christmas Shoes" by a group called NewSong (that's not a joke), and a Hallmark holiday movie spoof. New sketches include an unhinged flight attendant on Southwest, kissing cousins, an inappropriate "Black Elephant" gift exchange, and a new version of the "Sisters" duet from White Christmas.
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have a happy holiday with Denzel Belin, Doug Neithercott,
Lauren Anderson, Rita Boersma, and Isabella Dunseith |
BNW's holiday show always starts with a song; this time it's, you guessed it, "The Carol of the Bells." The traditional lyrics "ring, Christmas bells, merrily ring" morph into original lyrics about the stresses of the holidays. And the show always ends with the crowd favorite "12 Days of Christmas," with original lyrics about the annoying things that people say around the holidays, that get more ridiculous with each round of the song. The cast is accompanied as always by Jon Pumper on keyboard, who gets to participate in a few sketches this year, and even when he's not directly involved, his facial expressions are almost as great as his near constant underscoring. Matthew Vichlach returns on the tech side, running the lights and sound and TV screens with additional jokes or illustrations.
