Four Shorts into Reality With Stagecloud

Emerging entertainment group Stageloud presents its first offering at the Tenth Street Theatre this month. Hyperreality Show is a series of four shorts conceived by Sean Douglass that explore the nature of reality in fun, interesting and thoroughly accessible comedy.

Brad and Mr. Sorkin Write a Movie stars Joe Picchetti as screenwriter Aaron Sorkin who has been hired to work on a script for a big budget Hollywood film about Pinterest with a hot, young new screenwriter played by Nate Press. Douglass’ script cleverly delivers multi-layered comedy about the ways reality is presented onscreen and what audiences want from art.

A Group of People Have a Conversation About Science and Religion and the Internet is a dialogue that has been cleverly appropriated from the comments section of a YouTube video. The talented ensemble passionately delivers an online debate complete with unedited typos, illogical nonsequiturs and crazy stream-of-consciousness irrationality.

Tellenoverla is a slightly lame parody of telenovelas. It’s difficult for anyone to render a spoof of a dramatic genre that comes so close to spoofing itself, but Stagecloud makes a pretty good effort here with a genuinely funny cast. Jolie LeBell plays Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch as a desperate, gun-wielding jilted lover in a loveless marriage. A chupacabra helps with the final set change.

Fairytale Ending starts off as a somewhat light comedy about animated Disney-style royalty one year into marriage, but quickly escalates into something altogether more deliciously sophisticated as Elodie Senetra and Alex Johnson play princess and prince struggling to figure out whether two people can ever truly know each other.

Through Aug. 16 at the Tenth Street Theatre on 628 N. 10th St. For more information, visit stagecloudtheater.com.