This weekend, one night after InterACT graces the Plankinton Building, a variety of comedy makes it to the basement of the building as Retro Comedy Night comes to inhabit the stage of the Underground Collaborative.
Centered around "ideas from the 70s and 80s," retro Comedy Night features improv and sketch comedy for an evening of new entertainment based on old ideas. Sounds interesting and at least vaguely disorienting.
The evening also includes stand-up by Sammy Arechar. Here's footage of him doing almost solidly okay stand-up in Madison while working on a Rubik's Cube.
Also featured on the program is CHicago-based sketch and improv group Jack and the Wolf. Consisting of Milwaukee natives Jack Thurston Farrell and Wolfgang Eric Stein, J&tW is long-form improv drawn from a single suggestion from the audience. I'd caught their act at the 2011 Milwaukee Comedy Festival. More so than even other long-form improv that I'd seen, Farrell and Stein are willing to take time actually developing characters and telling a story that goes beyond the laughs . . . which makes for a performance of a bit more depth than one might normally expect out of improv.
Retro Comedy Night starts at 8pm on Saturday, February 9th at The Underground Collaborative on 161 West Wisconsin Avenue. Tickets are $15 at the door or $10 in advance on Brown Paper Tickets.com
