Just dropped off Kaylee at the high school for the first speech meet of the season. I gotta tell you, I LOVE that she loves speech as much as I did back in the day. It was the one thing I was actually good at in those formative years at AlBrook High. Football? I got shoved, blocked, and tackled into the ground so much, I thought mud was a beverage.  Basketball? My younger brother was a starter, but I was the "sixth man" (which, in high school-ese, means "you'll get in when we're ahead or behind by 72 points"). Choir and band? Yeaaaah, I was OK, but besides my patented Trombone Triple Tongue Technique, what did I have? (It didn't even pay off with any dates, for goodness sakes!) But speech...ah yes, speech.  It was there, alone in front of a high school classroom filled with nervous sweating kids in clip-on ties and too-big sweaters early on a Saturday morning, that I found my high school extracurricular home.

I tried Drama at first...Edgar Allen Poe's "Tell Tale Heart". But I had a hard time recreating that atmospheric terror tale at 9am on a Saturday, (plus there's nothing really dramatic about a prepubescent 13-year-old frothing at the mouth and squeaking about tearing up planks to expose hideous beating hearts...mildly creepy and mostly sad, to be sure, but not dramatic) so I quickly shifted gears to Humorous. Woody Allen and Steve Martin were my muses, and it was here, using their writings, that I first discovered the power that comes from making people laugh. I could control an audience by simply raising an eyebrow, or by giving a certain word or phrase a silly vocal emphasis. And not only did I control them, they seemed to enjoy it. Heck, they wanted more! That's the kind of power that goes to a 13-year-old boy's head. In fact, it still makes my 48- year-old head swell up like an ancient bald balloon when I do it in sketch comedy revues. 

Now I am able to pass info on to my child that is actually useful and instructive. I may not be able to help her with her flip turns in swimming (I would be honking up chlorine for a week), and I can't offer her fatherly advice with her club choice in golf ("I dunno.....hit it harder with the bigger one?"), but speech is a place where I CAN impart some knowledge. I am now experiencing first-hand the warm, fuzzy joy a baseball dad feels when his son comes to him and asks about the correct procedure to lay down a bunt! The same feeling washed over my soul when Kaylee asked for advice on what to cut out of her speech for time. I was even able to help her get a bigger laugh with a simple tweak of a vocal delivery. That, my friends, is advice you can't buy anywhere else, and it's making my face hurt from all the ear-to-ear smiling.

And why shouldn't I smile? I get to pass on some knowledge that she can use to become a better speaker, a better performer, and more importantly, a better person. Yes, those are all the benefits that come from a high school speech program. On top of that, she is making friends and memories that are gonna last her a lifetime. Oh sure, hockey might give you that, too, but you gotta sharpen an awful lot of skates and have your nose assaulted with sweat-drenched gear on a daily basis. All you need for speech is eye contact, poise, and a clip-on tie! OK, I can't get her to go for the tie, but she is really shining at all the rest. And it makes me a happy, proud dad.

Until I remember you have to get up at 3:30 to get to a Forest Lake speech meet....then I'm a bleary-eyed happy, proud dad.

Well, another sketch comedy revue is over and it's always a little sad. I get too much enjoyment, I think, out of making fun of the mayor and the city council and Denny Anderson and anyone else who had managed to make it into the news over the previous year; it's always hard to leave it behind.

I have been doing these end-of-the-year shows since 1987 when I got the unbelievable opportunity to join Colder by the Lake. I remember that first show so fondly ("While Shepard Watched His Flick By Night" for all you trivia buffs!)...I was in such awe of that all-star group of local comedy legends--Julie Ahasay, Bruce Ojard, Susan van Druten, Andy Nelson, Donn L. Hanson, Bud Backen, and the group's founder Margi Preus--that I barely contributed. I just sat and listened to these pros laugh and make stuff up and riff off each other. At one point early in process, Margi had to finally ask me if I wanted to continue to be in the show. She mistook my quietness for a feeling of being overwhelmed but it was completely the opposite; I was having a blast! Just watching these people play and create was amazing and a memory that I will always cherish. (Of course, I DID feel a bit intimidated when I got my first chance to perform a Bruce Ojard-written script. I finished reading it, all alone on the stage at Fitger's, then looked out into the seats, towards the back where Bruce were sitting, eager to get his feedback. There was a pause as Bruce thought about what he had just seen, then he turned to Margi and asked "Can't we have Donn do this one?")

But I eventually figured it out (sort of), and went on to write, perform, and even direct a few more Colder revues, followed by lots of revues for Renegade, and now I'm doing it with Rubber Chicken Theater. It's important to me that we continue this wonderful Twin Ports tradition of fun-poking that Margi and Colder by the Lake started way back in the 80s (and by Aristophanes a few years prior to that). The artists that surround me every November/December have gotten younger, but the talent remains top-notch. I don't know how much longer I'll be doing these revues...maybe 25 years is a good time to turn it over to someone else (stay tuned)...but I do know that it is my first theatrical love.

Well, that and spit takes.

Hello, and welcome to the brand spankin' new Rubber Chicken Theater website.  I can't thank Minden Hultstrom enough for taking on the immense challenge of bringing our site up to date and making it look spiffy.  But like everything else she has done for Rubber Chicken, she has exceeded expectations and brought a new level of spiffiness to what we're doing.  So thank you, Minden!

As the Beatles said, "it was twenty years ago today" (or thereabouts) that I got together with my good friends Donn L. Hanson, Jennifer Otos, Holly Vontin, Tom Martinson and Max Moen, and created Renegade Comedy Theatre.  Our very first show was a holiday sketch comedy revue entitled "The Christmas Enquirer, or, I Saw Mommy Kissing Elvis' Alien Love Child".  We had a blast making that show, having some fun with those '91 Duluth mayoral elections that saw the young, upstart Gary Doty defeat the incumbent, felony-laden John Fedo.  Mayor-Elect Doty even came to the show and played onstage with us.  I didn't know back in December of 1991 that Renegade wouldn't last, but, hey, a 16+ year run is pretty good and I wouldn't have changed anything about that journey.  (OK, maybe a couple of things....)

We got Rubber Chicken Theater up and running in 2008 and what do you know, I'm still writing, directing and performing these silly sketch comedy revues.  It seems like every December, I am getting together with talented, creative friends and figuring out parody-worthy targets, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  This time around, it's Minden, Greg J. Anderson, Cheri Tesarek, Taylor Martin-Romme, Mike Anderson, and Linda Bray, and like that very first Renegade revue, it has been a blast.

I hope you'll stop in and see our latest show (Who, What, Where, etc., is on the Home Page), and also our upcoming 2012 productions all around the Twin Ports.  Rubber Chicken may not have a permanent home, but Rubber Chicken is permanently HERE, creating local, live theater, just like I've been doing for nearly 25 years now.