Photo: The Accountants of Homeland Security
The Accountants of Homeland Security
The Accountants of Homeland Security
Laughing Liberally continues as a Shepherd Express podcast but has begun to return to the stage after a long, pandemic-induced lull. There next gig, dubbed “The Lost Show,” tales place at an opportune moment, April Fool’s Day, as the future of Wisconsin hangs in balance. However, it’s a step back in time, a performance of the show they had planned for March 2020 before the world shut down.
Comedian Matthew Filipowicz responded to some questions.
Tell me what you’ve got planned for the April 1 show?
So, this will be a bit of a long answer. I host and produce a monthly progressive political stand-up comedy show called Laughing Liberally Milwaukee. The Accountants of Homeland Security are a sketch comedy group that regularly perform at Laughing Liberally. I am also a member of the Accountants of Homeland Security. However, at Laughing Liberally, I'm primarily doing stand up and MC duties, while the other Accountants come on, interrupt me and the show, playing satirical right-wing characters. Before the COVID pandemic, every year, the Accountants would also write a full hour sketch comedy revue that we’d perform in Milwaukee and Chicago. We had just finished the script and were beginning rehearsals in March 2020, when bang, COVID hit.
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Fast forward to November of 2022. Laughing Liberally began doing live, in-person shows again for the first time in nearly three years. Shortly after, we started discussing doing a full hour Accountants show. We started talking about writing new material, when Randy reminded the rest of us that we actually HAD an hour of sketches that we had never performed. We read through the script and were simultaneously thrilled and horrified that the vast majority of the show was not only still funny, but also really relevant to what's going on politically and socially in 2023. Hence, we’ve dubbed it ‘The Lost Show.’ That’s sort of a long and complicated answer. A short answer is we have an hour of really funny political and satirical sketches with topics including a Republican themed show for toddlers, socialism vs. capitalism, dealing with far-right wing relatives, a time traveling robot, and Patrick Swayze. And, trust me, you want to see that Patrick Swayze sketch.
Are you focusing at all on the Supreme Court election?
Honestly, in this show, we’re not. We’ve changed a few things and a few jokes in rehearsal but 90% of the show is as it was written in March 2020. Which was long before any of us knew how to pronounce Protasiewicz. The truth is, the sketches that we do at Laughing Liberally tend to be very topical and in response to what was in the news in a given month. For our hour-long sketch shows, we tend to pull back, and joke about an ongoing political issue as opposed to some stupid thing Ron Johnson just said.
7:30 p.m., April 1 at the Interchange Theater Co-op, 628 N. 10tjth St. For tickets and more information, visit accountantsofhomelandsecurity.com
