Major Annoyance

Don’t dismiss the Annoyance Theater simply as offensive. Well, sure, maybe some material will inspire a walkout—one sketch about a boy being buried alive with his grandma ended with the defensive father telling his wife, “Hey, you want me to stop fucking him, don’t you?”—but founding member Mark Sutton puts it best: “Classic Annoyance is not the offending, but the spirit of not caring if you offended.”

Co-Ed Prison Sluts, the longest-running fringe musical in Chicago history (11 years, baby), was among the cult favorites that fueled the say-anything philosophy. Today, guilty pleasures like Love is Dead: A NecRomantic Musical Comedy (the hero gets freaky with dead people) and a remount of the troupe’s first show, Splatter Theater (soak up geysers of fake blood at an alumni rendition Saturday 13), wouldn’t be possible without a loyal, growing army of disciples. To honor the company’s two scrappy decades of demented delights, we asked its members to recount their favorite anecdotes.

Lisa McQueen, musician, 17-year member Once, during our late-night improv show Screw Puppies, I was at the piano when Bob Fisher steps onstage and starts removing his clothes. I knew that when he got down to his underwear, they would pull lights. Well, they didn’t, and off they go. Absolutely buck nekkid, Bob proceeds to deliver a five-minute monologue which was articulate, funny and at times bordered on eloquent. I don’t remember what it was about.

Additionally, you don’t often see a live chicken feasting on a meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I thought the act of chicken cannibalism was pretty memorable and quite ironic.

And just a few nights ago, I was at the piano and barely dodged getting hit in the face with a bloody cow’s tongue. That is an occupational hazard that rarely crops up in other theaters.

Mick Napier, cofounder, 20-year member Kaluah was my dog. She was in Co-Ed Prison Sluts for over a decade. She was a small beagle/collie/mutt breed. I remember driving the U-Haul to McDonald’s on my way to Chicago when I moved after college, and I was so poor that Kaluah and I had to share a Quarter Pounder. It got to the point in Co-Ed that she knew every cue by heart: She moved to every location onstage she was supposed to be in, including every entrance and exit. At the end of the show, there was a reprise of a favorite catchy number. For the last half of the run, she would sing [bark] the reprise as well. [Note: Napier always said he’d close Co-Ed when Kaluah died; sadly, she—and the show—passed away in 2000.]

Sean Cusick, five-year member Peter Renaud, who moved to Los Angeles awhile ago, would do a bit that would culminate with the lighting of his pubic hair on fire. The audience would switch between screams of laughter and horror. The best part was, afterwards, it would take about one entire minute for the smell of this to drift over the audience. A few moments into the next scene, you’d hear a gasping and gagging from the front row. Then the second. Then the third. Every time. That’s good comic timing.

Rich Sohn, 16-year member In ’94, I was excited to be asked to be a part of Donkey Improv 2. This was a show where the theater rented farm animals—there were chickens and a goat or two. There might have been sheep. And of course, there was a donkey. We threw a bunch of hay on the floor and then the four-legged improvisers did scenes with the two-legged improvisers. I remember Mick doing an “emotional option” game [in which the players adopt new emotions every few seconds] with the donkey that was pretty hysterical. Although, honestly, my memory from that period is a little fuzzy and it’s possible it was the goat. But it was funny how straight-up Mick played the scene, and how no matter what emotion the donkey was assigned, whether it was “pensive” or “agitated” or whatever, you could sort of see it in the donkey. Or goat. I don’t know whose great idea this show was or where the idea came from, but I am certain that no other theater would have spent three minutes considering it as a serious show proposal.

Jennifer Estlin, executive producer, 20-year member A beer delivery came a few days before Splatter Theater opened in the new space. We were all running around trying to get the show ready. I was in the loft and Mike Canale runs up to get a check for the beer delivery, then runs it back downstairs. As the delivery guy is on his way out, Mike yells up to me, “I can’t find the fucking hand. Do you know where I left the bloody hand? Is it up there?” Delivery guy looks back, shakes his head.

There’s also a guy who lives above the bar who is bothered by the noise. His method of dealing with it? Jumping up and down and/or lifting heavy objects and letting them drop for 15 to 20 minutes straight. One evening, it was someone’s birthday. There was a very small crowd, so the music playing was incredibly low, and he started his jumping up and down. Thus began the loudest, longest, most rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday” known to man.

For more Annoyance tales, including more about Mick's dog Kaluah, see More of an annoyance.