Erica Reid: Ensembles Archives

WE DID IT!

By Erica on April 5, 2011 6:47 PM | 1 Comment

Don't Spit the Water reached our goal! With 10 days left to go, too!
Many many thanks to all my friends and family (I'm looking at you Jan!) who donated to the cause. I cannot tell you how much it means to me.

The shoot date is scheduled for June 14th! If you are in Chicago and interested in being a member of our studio audience, please leave me a comment below or shoot me an email!

Much love!

Less than $1,000 to Go!

By Erica on March 30, 2011 8:40 PM | No Comments

THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of you who have donated to Blewt! Productions' Kickstarter Fundraiser for our TV pilot of Don't Spit the Water! The response has been amazing and we now have less than $1,000 to go!

Here is the video!

We've also recently had some really great press:
Time Out Chicago
Columbia Chronicle
The Onion AV Club
Trib Local
and the Chicago Tribune (well, sort of)

This is so very exciting! Thank you all for your support!!

Best Variety Show!

By Erica on June 24, 2010 10:31 AM | 1 Comment

The Chicago Reader Named Impress These Apes the Best Variety Show in Chicago!

Thanks to all the readers who voted!!

There's a lot that can go wrong here. Impress These Apes is an eight-week talent competition, now in its fifth iteration, in which contestants prepare assigned acts--stand-up with a puppet, say, or anti-comedy--to be judged American Idol-style by "hyper-intelligent apes from the future" (three comedians in masks). The acts might easily flop--or, worse, they might not be bad enough to elicit sufficient zingers from the apes.

And yet there's never a dull moment.

Blewt! Productions has engineered Apes with silly backstory and wacked- out characters enough to keep things lively. And the contestants--who've endured a rigorous audition process for the chance to win prizes, $500, and the title of Least Pitiful Human--are always up for the increasingly weird tasks at hand. The possibility that Apes could fall apart at any moment only means that when something special happens, like an underdog pulling out all the stops, it's glorious. It runs through July 26, Mondays at 8 PM; tickets are $10.

First Apes Review of the Season!

By Erica on June 14, 2010 2:58 PM | No Comments

From the Reader:

For its fifth edition, this eight-week talent contest has been streamlined. The backstory, explaining why three hyper-intelligent apes from the future are subjecting eight people to weekly challenges, is gone, and bits between the apes and other characters-a bronzed beauty pageant host; the sidekick, Future Human-are kept brief. The focus is on the contestants and the challenges, which are harder and weirder than ever. The first week's task was to perform anti-comedy. Chloe Ditzel prepared a unicycle routine that was derailed when she couldn't mount the thing; Otis Fine chugged two bottles of wine and sat quietly, awaiting the consequences. Few shows in Chicago are as consistently dangerous as Impress These Apes-anything can happen and usually does. -Steve Heisler

Daunting

By Erica on April 19, 2010 9:34 PM | No Comments

Whoa, would you want to audition in front of this table?

A bunch of people did at Impress These Apes auditions last week!

Thanks to Fuzzy for the photos. From left to right are Steve, Paul, Me, Ken and Bryan. We were trying on our "I don't like it" faces.

We're Dancin' Y'all!

By Erica on October 12, 2005 9:39 AM | No Comments

I am also a dancer/choreographer. I have a choreography company called We're Dancin' Y'all!, with my artistic associate Jeff Gandy, specializing in choreography for the non-dancer.

Don't Spit the Water

By Erica on October 11, 2005 2:58 PM | No Comments

Don't Spit The Water

Open run, Saturdays at 10:30 PM
at The Playground Theater
3209 N Halsted St
Chicago, Illinois

For ticket and contestant info, email info@dontspitthewater.com

A crazy live gameshow!
Challenging you to 'not spit the water.'
Featuring Sasha and The Noob, Timekeeper Willis, Big Dummy, Cutie Bumblesnatch (me!), a whole slew of other crazy characters, and a special guest comedians every week!

This show makes me laugh so hard, it makes me spit water, and I am not even a contestant. Guaranteed fun.