The Joke Show (2017 Edition)
2017 · Playhouse on the Square, Jacksonville, Illinois
The 2017 Edition of the Playhouse Joke Show was Ken Bradbury's third annual New Year's romp through the world's oldest jokes, staged at the Playhouse on the Square in Jacksonville, Illinois. As the cast told the audience, "We tried this in 2015 and again last year and we're going to keep at it until we get one right." In its first year the trouble was the lines, the second year the timing — and in 2017, the performers joked, they were "just lucky to find the right stool."
The format was deceptively simple: the cast entered to music, froze into position when it stopped, and fired off jokes from a row of stools, rotating clockwise to a new perch after every eight-beat musical interlude. Stephanie Soltermann provided the live accompaniment as the "lovely and talented orchestra." The material rolled from gentle groaners to barbed political needling — knock-knock jokes, puns, bar jokes, occupational gags, and the inevitable mother-in-law and old-age lines.
Bradbury, who wrote the show, gave his cast a built-in disclaimer to deliver to the crowd: if you really like a joke, thank him — he wrote it; if you're offended, the joke was stolen from somewhere else and he's not to blame. The audience was even invited to lodge complaints, prompting the cast to "give their names" by pointing to people in the audience instead. The accompanying program continued the gag with wildly fictitious biographies for every performer, from a retired professional lacrosse player to "the original model for Gerber Baby Food."
Cast
- Jodi Heitbrink
- Becky McCartney
- Laurie McCoy
- Rich McCoy
- Katie Phelps
- Gary Scott
- Bruce Surratt
- Stephanie Soltermann — orchestra / accompanist
- Jeff Westerfield
Production Notes
- Written by Ken Bradbury and staged at the Playhouse on the Square in Jacksonville, Illinois, where Rich and Laurie McCoy were co-owners.
- Performed around New Year's as the third installment of the Joke Show (following editions in 2015 and 2016).
- Built around stools, taped music cues, and eight-beat interludes that sent the cast rotating clockwise between jokes.
- The printed program ran a full set of tongue-in-cheek fake cast biographies in keeping with the show's spirit.
- The Playhouse's next production was announced as Couplings, by Ken Bradbury, on January 12, 13, and 14.